Summary Of A Delicate American Relationship

A Delicate Relationship: The United States and Burma/Myanmar Since 1945 Book Review For my Southeast Asia book review assignment, I have decided to pick the study titled A Delicate Relationship: The United States and Burma/Myanmar Since 1945 by historian and Northern Illinois University professor Kenton Clymer. Clymer has written the study because there is no comprehensive historical account of American relations with Burma. After 1962 dictator General Ne Win maintained Burma’s neutrality during the Cold War. Burma had taken only a small part in the Vietnam War. During this time Burma’s isolation was not on the American public’s radar, with the exception of occasional accounts about drug trafficking and religious monuments. During the course of history American relations with Burma have switched sides constantly to where their relationship is described as a

In the course of the study there are 14 chapters not including the preface and introduction. The first chapter deals with the period after World War II until Burma’s liberation in January 1948. The second chapter follows the next two years after liberation, when the country was in great stress having to deal with the aftermath of the war, the threat from communist groups, and the beginning of significant ethnic civil unrest. These challenges occurred without the leadership of Aung San, who had been killed half a year before liberation. The third chapter analyzes the first crisis in American-Burmese relations, Gordon Seagrave’s treason trial for assisting the Karen rebellion. Chapters four and six introduce an even more important crisis, one that festered for many years, the secret American support for the remaining KMT forces that had fled to northern