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

Madison, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1974. Large octavo, xvi, 256 pages with 4 maps and 10 tables. Cloth slightly rubbed and bumped; endpapers lightly discoloured; small ownership signature in ink; an excellent copy with the slightly used dustwrapper. After '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 work focuses on . 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' (dustwrapper blurb).