Information, real information, has never been an abundant commodity in Myanmar. Even rarer has been dependable analysis of what facts have emerged from time to time. In the void left by these absences have come speculation, wishful thinking, power-worshipping, and a seemingly irresistible urge to signal one's own virtue. The latter aspect was especially egregious during Myanmar's brief experience with quasi-democracy (2016–21), when for a time there was a genuine and realistic hope for something better.

Standing against all of this for nearly five decades has been Andrew Selth. A former diplomat, intelligence analyst, and finally a scholar of unusual rigour and wisdom, Andrew's writings have graced the pages and websites of surely all the outlets that deign to consider Myanmar. This breadth of output is a distinct positive in terms of immediate outreach, but it also means Andrew's writings can go missing later, a phenomenon exacerbated by the churn of online publications of uncertain commercial viability.

Hence this book, and its importance. Covering events, people, and issues from 2007 and all the way to the present, it takes us from dark times, better times, times of cautious optimism—and back once more into Myanmar's deep despair. Throughout, Andrew keeps his head even as, as Kipling (a subject of the book himself!) might have put it, all around were losing theirs.

Andrew's deep knowledge of Myanmar, the product of both sustained scholarship as well as lived experience in-country, shines through all these essays. This means in areas in which he is rightly renowned (national security, strategic considerations—though in truth Andrew has long ranged much beyond these), Andrew's analysis is informed throughout by profound knowledge of Myanmar and the lens through which its key actors see the world. In other words, Andrew comprehends the big picture, but he also understands the particular landscape within.

All of this book is worth reading, but the serious student of Myanmar should not skip over the Introduction, falsely assuming perhaps it is just the usual bromides and throat clearing. It's not, and it sets a tone not just for the book, but for Myanmar scholarship more broadly that just might— if it was emulated—lift discussion on the country to a better trajectory.