In late 2004, Myanmar's best known general and long-serving leader of the military regime, General Khin Nyunt, was suddenly dismissed. This shock development, perpetrated by a regime that has defied all predictions of its demise and disintegration, generated widespread uncertainty both inside and outside the country. Official reassurances about continuing the 2003 "Road Map" process left many questions about the path ahead unanswered. Would political dialogue with opposition groups be resumed? How would increasingly restive ethnic groups respond? Would nascent civil society groups be able to play a role in national reconciliation? How would the new leadership deal with the flagging economy? What are the prospects for the large but under-funded and highly regulated agricultural sector? This book addresses these issues.

November 2010 sees the first elections in Myanmar/Burma since 1990, to be held as the culmination of the military regime's 'Road Map for Democracy' The conditions under which the elections are being held are far from favourable, although the laws and procedures under which they will be conducted have been in place for seven months and quite widely publicized. Political controls remain repressive, freedom of expression and assembly does not exist, and international access is restricted by government controls as well as sanctions. While the elections represent a turning point for Myanmar/Burma, the lead-up period has not been marked by many notable improvements in the way the country is governed or in the reforming impact of international assistance programmes. Presenters at the Australian National University 2009 Myanmar/Burma Update conference examined these questions and more. Leading experts from the United States, Japan, France, and Australia as well as from Myanmar/Burma have conributed to this collection of papers from the Conference.

Is Myanmar (Burma) democratizing, or is it moving towards a new form of authoritarianism, perhaps one more consonant with other contemporary authoritarian regimes in Asia? Coming at a critical time, and one of growing interest in this Southeast Asian country among researchers and policy-makers, Debating Democratization in Myanmar addresses this complex question from a range of disciplinary and professional perspectives. Chapters by leading international scholars and practitioners, activists and politicians from Myanmar and around the world cover political and economic updates, as well as the problems of democratization; the re-engagement of democratic activists and exiles in domestic affairs; the new parliament, the electoral system, and everyday politics; prospects for the economy; ethnic cooperation, contestation and conflict; the role of the army and police forces; and conditions for women. Together they constitute an empirically deep and analytically rich source of readable and relevant material for anyone keen to obtain a greater understanding of what is happening in Myanmar today, and why.

By 1914 the Liberal Party had been governing Britain ever since its stunning general election victory of 1906. Four years later the Party was out of office, and so enfeebled it would never again form a government. What prompted the Liberal decline in the years of The Great War, and why did this decline then accelerate? Trevor Wilson's classic study analyses the strains exerted on Liberal principles by war, and the leadership crisis induced in 1916 by Lloyd George's ousting of Asquith. 'A good political mystery, and Mr Wilson has told it in fine dramatic style.' A.J.P. Taylor 'Offers portraits of those rivals, Asquith and Lloyd George, that are among the best - the most plausible and the most temperate - available.' New Yorker

"The Myriad Faces of War" is a unique and compelling study of the First World War from the standpoint of British involvement. It explores the reasons for Britain's entry into the war, the nature and course of Britain's participation and the far-reaching repercussions of the war on British society. The result is a rich and comprehensive chronicle of the social, political, diplomatic and military aspects of the Great War.

It is worth quoting the author, 'Nevertheless, if the Great War seems to reduce humanity to ciphers, this book does not doubt that its proper subject is man - or, rather, men and women, in high estate and low, in handfuls and large masses, in political and social military groupings. . . It relates how vast military campaigns, whose course could scarcely be perceived by those commanding them, appeared to humble occupants of the firing line. It tries to see how the war impinged on particular classes and a particular sex and how it affected lives: extinguishing some, touching others, scarcely at all, radically altering others, and affecting most pretty nearly - at least for the duration and often for a good deal longer.'

The author triumphantly succeeds in this. This is one of the most important books about the Great War published in the last fifty years.

'The Myriad Faces of War is a lively and well-organized reappraisal of Britain's role in the First World War which is unusual in paying equal attention to the military and home ''front''. Trevor Wilson makes good use of official records and the wealth of unpublished documentary material from archives such as that at the Imperial War Museum. This vigorous, fresh and thoughtful survey of a great war which still arouses a peculiar fascination can be strongly recommended to general students of the subject, but specialists will also find much of interest in Professor Wilson's magisterial history.' Brian Bond, "King's College, London "

'This is first major study of Britain in the Great War to appear in over a decade. It breaks new ground in integrating this history of then Front and the Home Front and provides insights into the way the war was fought by common soldiers and endured by ordinary people both in and out of uniform. The landscape of war it describes will be of interest to military, political and social historians, as well as to the wide readership which remains fascinated by the Great War.' Jay Winter, "Pembroke College, Cambridge"

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'Professor Trevor Wilson's mighty work on the first world war . . . is a truly significant contribution to our understanding of what the war meant to the British people . . . "The Myriad Faces of War" is a disciplined, unsentimental and thoughtful book - and it also retains strongly the human touch.' "Spectator "

'Wilson wries with compassion and wit . . . this is a book for the general reader as well as the scholar . .. it is by far the best study of Britain and the First World War that has yet been written.' "London Review of Books "

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'Wilson ranges impresssivley over all major aspects of the conflict . . . it is a judicious, readable overview of a monster subject.' "New York Times Book Review"

No conflict of the Great War excites stronger emotions than the war in Flanders in the autumn of 1917, and no name better encapsulates the horror and apparent futility of the Western Front than Passchendaele. By its end there had been 275,000 Allied and 200,000 German casualties. Yet the territorial gains made by the Allies in four desperate months were won back by Germany in only three days the following March. The devastation at Passchendaele, the authors argue, was neither inevitable nor inescapable; perhaps it was not necessary at all. Using a substantial archive of official and private records, much of which has never been previously consulted, Trevor Wilson and Robin Prior provide the fullest account of the campaign ever published. The book examines the political dimension at a level which has hitherto been absent from accounts of "Third Ypres." It establishes what did occur, the options for alternative action, and the fundamental responsibility for the carnage. Prior and Wilson consider the shifting ambitions and stratagems of the high command, examine the logistics of war, and assess what the available manpower, weaponry, technology, and intelligence could realistically have hoped to achieve. And, most powerfully of all, they explore the experience of the soldiers in the light-whether they knew it or not-of what would never be accomplished.

Published in a new edition on the centenary of the seismic battle, this book provides the definitive account of the Somme and assigns responsibility to military and political leaders for its catastrophic outcome. "A magisterial piece of scholarship. . . . It is a model of historical research and should do much to further our understanding of the Great War and how it was fought."-Contemporary Review "Revisionist history at its best."-Library Journal (starred review) "A major addition to the literature on the military history of the Great War."-Jay Winter