Book description
Since ancient times, China and India have been separated not only
by the towering summits of the Himalayas, but also by a vast expanse
of near impenetrable jungle, hostile tribes and remote inland
kingdoms, stretching a thousand miles from what is today Calcutta
across central Burma to the upper reaches of the Yangsi river. But
sometime in the early 21st century, this last great frontier will
vanish, the forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by superhighways,
insurgencies crushed, leaving China and India pressed up against each
other as never before. Though virtually unreported in the West, the
implications for the world are immense. A basic shift in geography -
like the opening of the Suez or Panama canals - may soon create an
unprecedented bridge between three billion people of South Asia and
the Far East. Part travelogue, part history, and part investigation of
today's fast-moving developments, The Hidden Map of Asia is a
colourful and compelling exploration of one of the world's least known
crossroads, a region that may hold the key to Asia's future.
Thant Myint-U was a senior officer in the executive office of
the United Nations Secretary General. He has worked for UN
peacekeeping operations in Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia. He was
educated at Harvard and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was
subsequently made a Fellow. He is the author of The Making of Modern
Burma, and The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma.
