Burma: Frontier Photographs 1918-1935 : The James Henry Green Collection (Hardcover)

~ Elizabeth Dell (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

At the boundaries of the British Empire, photography pushed at its own frontiers. These two hundred and fifty photographs, published here as a collection for the first time, provide a valuable and very specific record of Burma between the First and Second World Wars, when the British and Indian military had a profound impact on its peoples and territories at a key period in the region's political reassessment and redefinition. The images are selected from James Henry Green's extensive photography of recruitment and slave-release campaigns in the northern parts of Burma. They explore his personal documentation of the processes of contact, change and exchange in the early part of this century, at the frontiers of religion, trade, the military, education and identity. These photographs - ranging from spectacular landscapes to intimate portraits - served Green as documentation of his anthropological and military work, predominantly among the Kachin, Shan and Chin people; they also chronicle his personal journeys.

The pictures taken by Green in Burma form part of the history of a long line of photographers working on the Indian subcontinent from the inception of the medium. These pioneers, mostly amateur and often in official employment in the expanding empire, used the camera not only for their own amusement, but also as a serious documentary tool in the creation of archives relating to contact with little-known peoples. Today, these photographs, in conjunction with contemporary oral histories, are vital tools in the latest anthropological research into the events they record.

This comprehensively illustrated record of a vanished time offers a window not only on to a particular people at a particular point in history, but also on to ways of looking, illuminating our own assumptions, fears and desires.

About the Author

Elizabeth Dell is Keeper of Non-Western Art and Anthropology, and Head of The Green Centre for Non-Western Art at The Royal Pavilion, Libraries and Museums, Brighton. Her research work has included studies of collecting and museum history in the West, and their role in cultural representation.

John Falconer is Curator of Photographs, Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library. He has worked extensively on the history of photography in India and South-East Asia. His research with the British Library has included a major project to catalogue the Burma photograph holdings.

David Odo is affiliated to St Antony's College, Oxford University. His current research on the anthropology of photography focuses on Japanese colonial and anthropological images.

Mandy Sadan has worked in Burma since 1996, co-ordinating an oral history and archive project on behalf of The Green Centre for Non-Western Art at The Royal Pavilion, Libraries and Museums, Brighton. She is also affiliated to the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.

The Green Centre for Non-Western Art manages the African, Asian, Pacific and American collections in the care of Brighton Museum, recently designated collections of national importance. An endowment from the James Henry Green Charitable Trust supports the Green Centre programme of research and educational projects to promote a greater understanding of world art.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli Publications; 1st Edition. edition (June 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1858941032
• ISBN-13: 978-1858941035
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,320,538 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crucial Book Which Requires Careful Questioning, October 19, 2000

By	Dwayne Dixon (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews

Having only had the book in my possession for an evening so far, I am struck by the range of photographs included in this much-needed collection, but also by the strangely ambivalent accompanying essays, which, admittedly I've only perused. As with many cultural and pseudo-scientific records produced under colonialism, there is much that is problematic with these photographs and more, the person and Empire responsible for their creation. In another review, Dr. Johnston feels that this book will contribute to increased tourism to the "Golden Land". This is exactly the spirit in which some of these photographs were made or reproduced in their contemporary context: to be consumed by inhabitants of the First World. Burma is not a Golden Land and has existed in the Western imagination as an idyllic repository for an "untouched and original" romantic primitivism. This book shows otherwise and in an indirect manner, points to some of the root causes for the genocidal strife encompassing Burma under the brutal State Peace and Development Council and its coetrie of merciless generals. As someone who does extensive collaborative documentary work with children here in the United States and with Karen refugee children on the Thai-Burma border, I'm disappointed by this book's tone and its indistinct or muffled point-of-view. The era of objective scholarship has passed. The images contained here have enormous bearing on both passive spectators in the West and on the ethnic minorities still struggling against cultural exploitation by eager tourists and fighting for political and religious autonomy and liberation from the dictators who inherited the crude construct of imposed nationhood from the departing British colonisers. As you read and examine this book, I urge you to so critically, to search out other information and to educate yourself and in so doing honor the visual memory of the people contained in these pages.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crucial Book Which Requires Careful Questioning, October 19, 2000

By	Dwayne Dixon (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews

Having only had the book in my possession for an evening so far, I am struck by the range of photographs included in this much-needed collection, but also by the strangely ambivalent accompanying essays, which, admittedly I've only perused. As with many cultural and pseudo-scientific records produced under colonialism, there is much that is problematic with these photographs and more, the person and Empire responsible for their creation. In another review, Dr. Johnston feels that this book will contribute to increased tourism to the "Golden Land". This is exactly the spirit in which some of these photographs were made or reproduced in their contemporary context: to be consumed by inhabitants of the First World. Burma is not a Golden Land and has existed in the Western imagination as an idyllic repository for an "untouched and original" romantic primitivism. This book shows otherwise and in an indirect manner, points to some of the root causes for the genocidal strife encompassing present-day Burma under the brutal State Peace and Development Council and its merciless generals. As someone who does extensive collaborative documentary work with children here in the United States and with Karen refugee children on the Thai-Burma border, I'm disappointed by this book's tone and its indistinct or muffled point-of-view. The era of objective scholarship has passed. The images contained here have enormous bearing on both passive spectators in the West and on the ethnic minorities still struggling against cultural exploitation by eager tourists and fighting for political and religious autonomy and liberation from the dictators who inherited the crude construct of imposed nationhood from the departing British colonisers. As you read and examine this book, I urge you to do so critically, to search out other information and to educate yourself and in so doing honor the visual memory of the people contained in these pages.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful insight into the past, August 12, 2000

By	D. Johnston "Burmaphile" (Christiansted, VI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Superb photos, informative text - all in all, a fascinating work and a book which will surely entice many more tourists to the Golden Land....