DescriptionThailand, Laos, and Burma have been known as the "Golden Triangle" because of their historically prominent role in the drug trade. For centuries, these countries have produced the opium that has attracted traders from Europe and elsewhere. Economics, religion, and politics combine to make this area not only important but also, to the western mind, exotic. The World's Political Hot Spots series explains the basis of conflicts in some of the world's most politically sensitive areas. Many of these regions are in today's headlines, and tensions recently have become violent in virtually all of them. Each presentation covers up to 10 centuries of background, revealing how and why today's problems occur.
DescriptionFor the past decade, world-renowned wildlife conservationist Alan Rabinowitz has been leading the fight to save tigers in one of their greatest natural habitats, the remote Hukaung Valley in northernmost Mynmar (formerly Burma). In January 2006, Alan trav…
DescriptionWhy not? After all, no one had ever done it before. It would be one of the longest of all overland journeys, from the English Channel to Singapore. Several expeditions had already tried. Some had got as far as the deserts of Persia; a few had even reached…
DescriptionAn extraordinary first novel that tells the story of a British piano tuner sent deep into Burma in the 19th century. In October 1886, Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War Office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London…
DescriptionIn October 1886, Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London to travel to the jungles of Burma, where a rare Erard grand piano is in need of repair. The piano belongs to an army surgeon - major whose unorthodox peacekeeping methods - poetry, music, and learning shared with local warring princes - have brought a tentative quiet to the southern Shan States but have elicited questions from his superiors about his loyalty. On his journey toward Burma - across Europe, the Red Sea, and India - Edgar encounters prophets and thieves, soldiers and tale-spinners, and an enchanting woman as elusive as the surgeon-major will turn out to be. And, on Burma's vast rivers and in her abandoned cities, Edgar encounters a place more mysterious and dangerous than he could ever have imagined.
