Books

In late 1930, on a secluded mountain overlooking the rural paddy fields of British Burma, a peasant leader named Saya San crowned himself king and inaugurated a series of upris-ings that would later crupt into one of the largest anticolonial rebellions in Southeast Asian history. Treated as an imposter by the British, a hero by nationalists, and a prophet-king by area-studies specialists, Saya San came to embody traditional Southeast Asia’s encounter with European colonialism in his attempt to resurrect the lost throne of Burma.

The Return of the Galon King analyzes the legal origins of the Saya San story and reconsiders the facts on which the basic narrative and interpretations of the rebellion are based. Aung-Thwin reveals how counterinsurgency law produced and criminalized Bur-mese culture, contributing to the way peasant resistance has been recorded in the archives and understood by Southeast Asian scholars.

This interdisciplinary study reveals how colonial anthropolgists, lawyers, and scholar-administrators developed interpretations of Burmese culture that influenced contemporary notions of Southeast Asian resistance and protest. It provides a fascinating case study of how history is treated by the law, how emerges in legal decisions, and how the au-thority of the past is used to validate legal findings.