The Burma Delta – Economic Development and Social Change on an Asian Rice Frontier, 1852–1941

In the decades following its annexation to the Indian Empire in 1852, Lower Burma (the Irrawaddy-Sittang delta region) was transformed from an underdeveloped and sparsely populated backwater of the Konbaung Empire into the world’s largest exporter of rice. This seminal and far-reaching work focuses on two major aspects of that transformation: the growth of the agrarian sector of the rice industry of Lower Burma and the history of the plural society that evolved largely in response to rapid economic expansion.

Michael Adas is the Abraham E. Voorhees Professor of History at Rutgers University. He is author of Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance and Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission.