Burma is currently ruled by a harsh dictatorship that is unaffected by Western activists and sanctions. It is also the theater of the world's longest-running conflict. Thant Myint-U, drawing from both his family's stories and his years of political experience working with the United Nations, has written an enlightening account of how Burma's rich past informs its violent present and how the world can transform the country's future. In his book The River of Lost Footsteps, Thant Myint-U narrates the story of modern Burma, partly through the narrative of his own family's history, in an interconnected narrative that is at times lyrical, dramatic, and detached. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being a teacher in a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to becoming the Secretary-General of the UN in the 1960s. On his father's side, the author descends from a long line of courtiers who served in the Court of Ava in Burma for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he captures the rise and decline of Burma in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and rebel Mughal princes, through decades of British colonial rule, the devastation of World War II, a sixty-year civil war that continues today, and military repression with the rise of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The River of Lost Footsteps is a personal and global work, a distinctive contribution that makes Burma accessible and astonishing. Thant Myint-U is the author of Where China Meets India and has written articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New Statesman.
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