IIAS Newsletter 45 Autumn 2007

Getting beyond image to reality in Burma (Myanmar)

Donald M. Seekins

James, Helen. 2006. Security and Sustainable Development in Myanmar. Abington, UK: Routledge, xvi + 321 pages. ISBN 0 415 35559 1 (hbk), ISBN 0 203 00198 2 (ebk)

Written as a companion volume to her Governance and Civil Society in Myanmar: Education, Health and Environment, published in 2005, Helen James’s Security and Sustainable Development in Myanmar asks: Why can’t Burma (Myanmar) be treated as a ‘normal’ Third World country with serious social, economic and human rights problems but also the potential, given international assistance, to gradually evolve into a country that provides its people with enhanced ‘human’ security, high standards of living and a vibrant civil society as its South-East and East Asian neighbours have done over the past two or three decades?

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