Maximillian Mørch


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Asian Review of Books •

Book Review - “The Golden Land Ablaze” by Bertil Lintner

In Myanmar today, resistance against the 2021 coup and the military regime, has spread across the entire country, and fighting has engulfed the state, displacing millions and leaving the country in a state of turmoil. To explain how we got to this point, and what is the future for both the resistance movement and the Myanmar military, veteran journalist Bertil Lintner provides in The Golden Land Ablaze a detailed background of Myanmar’s political development since Independence in 1948. Over six...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Island” by Sujit Saraf

Sujit Saraf has set his new novel in the Andaman islands, located in the Indian Ocean, far from the Indian mainland, geographically but also culturally. Island’s protagonist, Nirmal Chandra Mattoo is a middle-aged man, working in a shop in the capital, Port Blair,  selling counterfeit tribal artwork to tourists.  A Kashmiri originally from Delhi, Mattoo arrived on the Andamans decades ago, as a young and promising anthropologist. Working for the Anthropological Survey of India as an eager 22-yea...
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Book Review “India’s Near East: A New History” by Avinash Paliwal

India’s western frontier with Pakistan may generate more headlines but India’s eastern border flanking both Myanmar and Bangladesh is arguably more complex. Both neighbors have long been unstable and have both at points in their history found their territory being used by rebels waging war against New Delhi. It is not just neighboring countries that pose a challenge: internal borders too are at play. The Indian government for decades has had a complex, often tumultuous relationship with its nort...
Asian Review of Books •

“On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar” by Clare Hammond

Railways are major public infrastructural projects; one would therefore think it should therefore be easy to find out which rail lines exist and at what times trains are running. Not in Myanmar. Aside from the well-known main lines, Clare Hammond a myriad of smaller branch lines in remote parts of the country, with little information as to when the trains will run or if the lines are even operational. Many of these train tracks are not part of a public service, rather they were built for use by
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Leech and other stories” by Ranjan Adiga

Ranjan Adiga’s debut collection Leech and other stories comprises 10 short stories based around the experiences of Nepalis adapting to new worlds, lands and experiences. The majority relate to migration, both internal, with migrants from rural Nepal traveling to try make it in the capital, or abroad, in search of their dream life in America. It is unsurprising that a nation shaped should produce a writer who tackles the subject with such nuance and tenderness. The individuals from all walks of
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Never Never Land” by Namita Gokhale

“Sometimes we have to retreat to return.” So says Iti, who is living in Gurgaon but is far from happy. A freelance editor, struggling to make it as an author, her life is a mess. Feeling lost and unsuccessful, particularly compared to her more successful classmates, who are rich and married while she lives alone consumed by a “pointless bitter anger, this bile that inhabits me.” As Iti spends each day looking at the WhatsApp chats of her former classmates, showing off their trappings of success,
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Book Review “Maharajas, Emperors, Viceroys, Borders: Nepal’s relations North and South” by Sam Cowan

Sir Sam Cowan worked with Gurkha soldiers for many years in Nepal but also in Malaya, Singapore and Borneo, eventually becoming Colonel Commandment of the Brigade of Gurkhas and the Chairman of the Gurkha Welfare Trust. In this capacity he interacted with several of Nepal’s key players, including King Birendra and King Gyanendra. After retirement from the army, Cowan started researching and writing articles on Nepali history. This new book brings together a selection of his more popular and impo
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “The Crossroads: Kashmir-India’s bridge to Xinjiang” by Kulbhushan Warikoo

Kashmir has always been the point of connection between South Asia, Central Asia and Xinjiang. Winding their way through the mighty Himalaya, Pamir and Karakoram Mountain ranges, traders, travelers and officials created a series of close historic economic, cultural and political ties that have bound the region together. Prof Kulbhushan Warikoo’s new book The Crossroads: Kashmir-India’s bridge to Xinjiang is a new history of Kashmir, focusing on its role in linking the Indian-subcontinent to Xin
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Book Review “Mountains of Dawn: A Portrait of Arunachal Pradesh” by Mamang Dai

This large photobook offers a detailed visual portrayal of the ecology, history, and cultural diversity of the largest of India’s seven North Eastern states. Mountains of Dawn: A Portrait of Arunachal Pradesh was originally published in 2009; this updated 2023 edition includes over 100 photos. The visual portrayal of the land, “a belt of green shadowed in perpetual rain and midst”, is complemented by a well-written narrative, adding context and further information in support of the visuals on of
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Nepal: From Monarchy to Republic” by Lok Raj Baral

Nepal’s tumultuous political history is the focus of Lok Raj Baral’s latest book, Nepal: From Monarchy to Republic, which charts the country’s journey from its political unification in 1769 to its present status as a federal democratic republic. The veteran author and political scientist charts the seismic shifts that have fundamentally changed Nepal’s politics, society and structure as a state. The book kicks off with an explanation of King Prithvi Narayan Shah’s military conquests in the 18th
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Book Review “Maymyo Days: Forgotten Lives of a Burma Hill Station” by Stephen Simmons

Pwin-u-Lwin is a town in upper Burma, situated in the hills east of Mandalay, known for its cool climate. Yet for many, Pwin-u-Lwin is better known as Maymyo. Renamed in 1896 after the head of the 5th Bengal infantry, Colonel James May, Maymyo was the most famous hill station in colonial Burma. The British occupied Maymyo in 1895 and a military garrison was erected there in 1897. It soon became a popular holiday destination for those living in Burma. In 1900, following the construction of a trai
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Book Review “The Quest for Modern Assam: A History, 1942-2000” by Arupjyoti Saikia

Assam, which shares borders with Bhutan, Bangladesh and used to border Myanmar and China, is the largest state in India’s volatile Northeast region. Many of the Indian states that now border Assam; Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, were all carved out of Assam’s territory post-Independence following fierce political battles for representation and autonomy. Therefore a study of Assam is vital not just for understanding events in one of India’s most geopolitical important regions
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Book Review “Smoke and Ashes” by Amitav Ghosh

In 2008, Amitav Ghosh released A Sea of Poppies, the first in a trilogy of historical fiction set in India and China in the 1830s amid the outbreak of the First Opium War. The Ibis trilogy details the growth of opium in India, the role of British agents in shipping it to Canton (modern-day Guangzhou) and the massive international impact of the opium trade. Now, eight years after the final book in the trilogy was released, Ghosh has released Smoke and Ashes, a non-fiction compendium to the series
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Book Review “Anarchy or Chaos: MPT Acharya and the Indian Struggle for Freedom” by Ole Birk Laursen

In Anarchy or Chaos, Ole Birk Laursen sets out to bring the life and intellectual contributions of MPT Acharya, a relatively unknown yet vitally important Indian revolutionary, to a wider audience. This biography delves into Acharya’s involvement in nationalism, anticolonialism, revolution, and anarchism, drawing extensively from memoirs, letters, newspapers, and intelligence reports. The result is a remarkable and comprehensive portrayal of a man, for whom much of his life was spent at the cent
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review - “Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom”

The impact of missionaries around the world has been widely condemned by anthropologists, historians and medical professionals. They have been accused of suppressing indigenous languages, religious and social practice, disrupting countries’ social fabrics and prohibiting contraception. Moreover, missionaries were, on the whole, stalwart defenders of European colonialism. However, that does not mean they are unworthy of nuanced academic study, indeed given the immense socio-political and religiou
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Book Review “Negotiating Borders and Borderlands: The Indian Experience”, edited by Gorky Chakraborty and Supurna Banerjee

Negotiating Borders and Borderlands, edited by Gorky Chakraborty and Supurna Banerjee, delves into the intricate dynamics of India’s borders and the everyday experiences of those living in its borderlands. It features a diverse collection of articles contributed by various authors, aiming to analyze and portray how borders have influenced the destiny of countries and their inhabitants. In contrast to a statist approach to border studies, the book focuses deliberately on the lives of individuals

Book Review “Northeast India: A Political History” by Samrat Choudhury

Beyond the Siliguri Corrido, the so-called chicken neck of Indian territory that runs between Bangladhesh and Nepal, lies an India very different from that of common preconceptions. This is an area surrounded by Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh, hemmed in by the Himalaya. As Samrat Choudhury writes in the introduction to his new book, Northeast India: A Political History, “the Northeast is a protuberance that hangs on to the rest of the country by a slender thread, barely 21 kilometres wide
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Book Review “Fruits Of The Barren Tree” by Lekhnath Chhetri

Fruits of the Barren Tree, a translation of the Nepali-language novel Phoolange, is set near Darjeeling, the hill station in India’s West Bengal synonymous with the Raj, tea gardens and domestic honeymooners. Yet the mountainous region portrayed by Lekhnath Chhetri is a far cry from the clichés and tropes that are so often invoked when discussing the region. The book is one of the few novels set amid the Gorkhaland movement of the 1980s,which saw multiple years of political struggle, often viol
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Empire Building: The Construction of British India, 1690-1860” by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

While most of the now common histories of the East India Company (EIC) and British India discuss the politics, conflict or culture of empire, Rosie Llewellyn-Jones’s Empire Building: The Construction of British India, 1690-1860 focuses on the physical construction of British India through the buildings that were constructed, the background to their design, the political and economic constraints that shaped their design and how these colonial constructions influenced India’s society, economy and
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