The result, based on extensive research and interviews with many leading participants, is an outstanding major study of the complexities of the long-running wars between the government, the Communist Party of Burma, the Karen National Union and myriad other ethnic and regional movements. His first chapter entitled The Burmese Way to Stagnation and the Crisis of 1988 has great impact, dealing as it does with the dramatic events of that momentous year, and acts as a springboard to the re-examination of the many complex causes which had brought Burma, in Smith's words, to the edge of such bloodshed, despair and disaster.

In a further twenty chapters, Smith charts the rise of modern political parties in the British colonial and Japanese occupation periods, examining the roots of political conflict and insurrections in the parliamentary era and the Ne Win era, as well as politics in the 1980s and 1990s including the aftermath of the Communist Party of Burma's collapse in 1989, the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, the student movement, the 1990 general election and the continuing grip on the country of the military regime (formerly the SLORC, now known as the SPDC). The helpful list of Acronyms and Abbreviations (pp. xi-xiii) has been revised for this new edition to include new groups such as the DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) and the USDA (Union Solidarity and Development Association) and a third chart added (pp. xvi-xvii) on Status of Armed Ethnic Opposition Groups, 1998 which lists the main ceasefire organizations (in order of agreement) and the non ceasefire forces and their leaders.
Smith pulls off the difficult feat of presenting a balanced appraisal of a most sensitive and contentious subject while not mincing his words as to the urgency of change. There is, he writes, a mounting array of new social problems that underpin the country's collapse to one of the world's ten poorest. Over one million inhabitants have been displaced from their homes; Burma is the world's largest producer of illicit opium; environmental problems are grave; and the country has one of Asia's most alarming HIV/AIDS crises .... But, with the universities repeatedly closed, the question remains where the next generation of qualified leaders and personnel will emerge from.

All in all this is an indispensable work for any serious student of modern Burma's volatile political history.

The principal author, Major General Lyall Grant, opens by presenting the geo-political and strategic considerations which led to a fatal British military weakness in Burma. When the Japanese, with some help from Aung San's Burma Independence Army, proceeded to exploit this weakness with great speed and verve, the British, despite some last-minute reinforcement, notably by 7 British Armoured Brigade, were incapable of stemming their relentless advance. The result was the longest fighting retreat ever undertaken by British arms.

In this epic campaign the raw British infantry force, although greatly helped by British armour, was no match for the Japanese. Yet it was by no means overrun. Surviving units, especially 17 Indian Division, retreated into India as a veteran fighting force. Over two years later, suitably reinforced, they would inflict crushing defeats on the Japanese Army which led to the reconquest of Burma and to Aung San's army changing sides.

This book has to be the definitive military account of the Japanese invasion and is a major contribution to the history of World War II. It is also an astonishing example of British/Japanese co-operation in military history.