Containing Decolonisation : British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma

This book examines the relationship of imperialism and ethnonationalism. Through a case study of colonial Burma, it finds that British imperialists amplified ethnonationalism to protect their interests after decolonisation. This preference helped Burmese ethnonationalists to seize power in the post-colony, to the detriment of the country’s people. -- .

This book examines British imperialism in late colonial Burma to study how imperialists attempted to protect their strategic and economic interests after decolonisation: they did so by supporting ethnonationalism. This process resembles the Cold War tactic of “containment,” and the book makes a crucial contribution to the study of modern imperialism by demonstrating the continuity between “containment’s” late- and “neo”-colonial manifestations. For Burma/Myanmar, it also explores the origin of the present-day military junta’s racial regime: it emphasizes the protection of the ethnoreligious majority from ethnic minority insurgency. The Rohingya people are currently suffering a genocide because of this racial regime. As the country endures civil war against the junta, this book highlights how ethnonationalists in the late colonial period first promoted this racial regime to seize power and prevent revolution, a process supported by British imperialists for their own ends.