Brave Men of the Hills

Burma was conquered by Britain in the course of three wars fought in 1825, 1852, and 1885, and colonial rule was to last until 1948. when Burma regained its lost independence. Throughout this period there were several armed uprisings against foreign rule and its social and economic ramifications. In this book the author explores how peasant militancy was first generated and then crystallized into an open challenge to the colonial state. Fie focuses on two types of uprisings: the nineteenth-century resistance which followed the three wars of conquest, and Saya San's revolt of 1930 to 1933. Rather than seeing such Burmese responses as being the symptom era colonial pacification process, Ghosh argues that they were organic expressions of a momentum of resistance originating among a grassroots peasant base.