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Stories from an Ancient Land

book cover of Stories from an Ancient Land by Magnus Fiskesjö
January 3, 2023

Magnus Fiskesjö on his latest book, interviewed by Nick Cheesman

In 2013, the Journal of Burma Studies published an article(link is external) titled “An Introduction to Wa Studies.” It seems that even within the last decade the Wa, an upland people living predominantly on what is today the Burma-China frontier, still needed to be introduced to other scholars of the region. Magnus Fiskesjö(link is external), the article’s author, began with the caveat that it was by no means complete and was intended only by way of brief introduction. But the article held out the promise of more, and now its author has delivered, with Stories from an Ancient Land: Perspectives on Wa History and Culture(link is external) (Berghahn, 2021). In this episode, Magnus joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies(link is external) to discuss everything from rice beer to silver mining, opium production and warfare, the tension between the Wa egalitarian ethos and practices of slave holding, and the present and possible future conditions for a people on the periphery of mainland Southeast Asia in an age of intolerant ethno-nationalism.

Additional Information

Topic

  • Development, Law, and Economics

Tags

  • International Development
  • Land Use

Program