Description:
"In 1919 G. E. Harvey delivered a speech to staff and students of Rangoon College.
Entitled ?The Writing of Burmese History,? his lecture exhorted local students to
look to the glories? and shames? of their past, for ?in the beauty of old time you
will find an ideal for the future.?2 Harvey encouraged the students to appreciate the
?beauty? of their past, yet also to take guidance from their modern English
education. In concluding his lecture he exhorted the students to write the history of
their own people, stating: ?It is for the younger generation with its superior mental
training to justify its education, to help these men of an older generation and to take
up the magnificent task of writing a fitting History of Burma.?
Six years later a history in a form consistent with Harvey?s description was
published under the title History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to March 1824
The Beginning of the English Conquest.4 The author of this history, however, was
not a local student who was inspired by Harvey?s lecture, but rather Harvey
himself. The History of Burma sets out to describe the histories, art and literature of
the pre-colonial kingdoms in Burma. In this work Harvey combines the narratives
of earlier European travellers to Burma with tales from the local chronicles, and
evidence from the local inscriptions. Harvey?s text is an academic account of Burmese history, but it is also a highly literary and sometimes contradictory
narrative. 5 Harvey, in his introduction to the book, describes it as ?a little pioneer
work,? as much of the written evidence of pre-colonial Burma remains
?untranslated or unprinted.?6 Yet this book, which was originally published in
London in 1925, was not just a ?little pioneer work,? it became one of the standard
Burmese history texts in the late colonial period..."
Source/publisher:
SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol.3, No. 1, Spring 2005,
Date of Publication:
2005-03-20
Date of entry:
2010-10-03
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Language:
English