The Burma Spring

by Rena Pederson

Overview

Award-winning journalist and former State Department speechwriter Rena Pederson brings to light fresh details about the charismatic Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi: the inspiration for Burma’s (now Myanmar) first steps towards democracy. Suu Kyi's party will be a major contender in the 2015 elections, a revolutionary breakthrough after years of military dictatorship. Using exclusive interviews with Suu Kyi since her release from fifteen years of house arrest, as well as recently disclosed diplomatic cables, Pederson uncovers new facets to Suu Kyi’s extraordinary story.The Burma Spring will also surprise readers by revealing the extraordinary steps taken by First Lady Laura Bush to help Suu Kyi, and also how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton injected new momentum into Burma’s democratic rebirth. Pederson provides a never before seen view of the harrowing hardships the people of Burma have endured and the fiery political atmosphere in which Suu Kyi’s has fought a life-and-death struggle for liberty in this fascinating part of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605987330
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	01/15/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Rena Pederson is an award-winning journalist, accomplished TED speaker, and author of five books. During her career, she has interviewed newsmakers ranging from Margaret Thatcher to Fidel Castro and Jane Goodall as well as five U.S. Presidents. She served on the Pulitzer Prize Board for nine years.  As Vice President and Editorial Page Editor at The Dallas Morning News, she received national recognition. During that time, Texas Monthly described Pederson as one of the most powerful women in Texas. Pederson also served as a Senior Speechwriter and Advisor for Strategic Communications at the U.S. Department of State. Her first book What’s Next? was featured on the Oprah Winfrey television show and her book, The Burma Spring, was featured in the Los Angeles Book Festival and the Texas Book Festival. 

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Editor's Note xiii

Prologue xv

Map xix

Introduction xxi

1 Rangoon, 2003 1

2 The Lady Vanishes 25

3 The Return of the Native 41

4 The Candidate 57

5 The Prize Winner 78

6 A Daughter of Destiny 85

7 Khin Kyi 116

8 "Suu" 152

9 The Lady of the Lake 171

10 The Lives of Others 207

11 The General in His Labyrinth 227

12 The Lords of the Sunset 267

13 Friends in High Places 310

14 The Monks Go on the March 350

15 The Killer Storm 386

16 The Intruder 409

17 Free At Last 435

18 The Game of Thrones 471

A Life in Detention 523

Bibliography 527

Acknowledgments 536

Editorial Reviews

12/22/2014
Journalist Pederson (The Lost Apostle) delivers a penetrating portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy party, in a thoughtful biography that reveals the “moody, temperamental” side of its charismatic and visionary subject. Pederson opens with a 2003 covert interview with “The Lady,” whose prodemocracy campaign in Myanmar (formerly Burma) has earned her a place in history. A nation rich in natural resources, Myanmar now ranks among the world’s poorest after years of military rule, and Pederson traveled to the new capital, Naypyidaw (a $4 billion monument to dictator Than Shwe), at great personal risk while conducting her research. Suu Kyi—an Oxford graduate, daughter of a martyred general and ambassador, and leader since 1988 of the opposition party—remained under house arrest on and off until 2010, with long separations from her family, and inspired First Lady Laura Bush to take an active role working with the U.N. to bring humanitarian aid to Myanmar. Pederson charts Myanmar’s “winter thaw,” which earned Suu Kyi a seat in Parliament, and while Suu Kyi’s fearlessness and Buddhist faith have carried her far, observers continue to wonder what impact her work will have on a country that has stymied U.S. presidents since Reagan. Photos. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Impressively researched and compellingly written, Rena Pederson has woven together the epic journey of Aung San Suu Kyi with the turbulent story of her country, Burma, in a fascinating and inspiring way.

Benedict Rogers

An ambitious and necessary work. An illuminating dossier about a heroic woman and a nation walking, slowly, toward a freer land.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Writing a biography of a living legend is never easy, especially when the living legend is legendarily inaccessible. Rena Pederson has managed to break through the difficulties to publish a thick, fascinating biography. Pederson’s book is as much a biography of Burma as it is a biography of a courageous, charismatic woman who has risked her life to end the dark ages through political activism. An important book.

The Dallas Morning News

The riveting story of Suu Kyi’s brutal imprisonment, deplorable maltreatment,astonishing inner strength, and ultimate survival is told with a historian’s appreciation for context and circumstance by journalist and former State Department speechwriter Pederson in a complex and sweeping history of Burma’s centuries-old struggle to maintain a closed society, yet manifest its power on a global scale.

Booklist (starred review)

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the towering figures of our age: a tireless champion of democracy, freedom and reconciliation. Rena Pederson captures Suu Kyi as few others have, producing a vivid account of the life of this remarkable woman. The Burma Spring is a valuable resource for anyone interested in contemporary Burma.

Senator Mitch McConnell

Wonderfully inspirational. A must read.

Senator Elizabeth Dole

Tart and witty. Pederson’s book shines.

Shelby Hearon

02/01/2015
Veteran journalist and former U.S. State Department speechwriter Pederson (writing, Southern Methodist Univ.; The Lost Apostle) tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and the country she hopes one day to lead, Burma. Although focused predominantly on telling Suu Kyi's story—she remained under house arrest for most of the years from 1989 to 2010—Pederson devotes space to contextualizing her subject's struggle for democracy within the history of postcolonial Burma and detailing the atrocities and political miscalculations committed by the generals in charge, thus making Suu Kyi's quiet defiance of the military junta that much more remarkable. One of the more fascinating disclosures readers will learn about is the extent to which Laura Bush (who wrote the foreword to the book) kept Suu Kyi and Burma on the agenda in policy circles within the Bush Administration. VERDICT Those following Burmese affairs may not find many revelations. However, readers seeking more than the occasional headline will find a compelling story deserving of greater international recognition. Recommended for readers of international affairs, world politics, and democracy movements.—Chris Sauder, Round Rock P.L., TX

Library Journal

2014-11-20
The long, hard road to "national reconciliation" wrought by Burmese national heroine Aung San Suu Kyi (b. 1945).Dallas journalist Pederson (Writing/Southern Methodist Univ.; The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia, 2006, etc.) evokes the quiet, stubborn dignity of this rather improbable political icon of Myanmar, a multiethnic country of mostly Buddhists. The daughter of visionary war hero and founder Aung San, who had been brokering independence from Britain when he was assassinated by the Burmese military in 1947, Suu Kyi was largely drawn into politics by accident, more out of a sense of duty than personal political engagement. Pederson looks at the factors that led the martyr's daughter, educated at Oxford University, married to British academic Michael Aris in 1971 and the mother of two sons, to return to her homeland after years away and take up the crusade for democracy. The 20-year military dictatorship of Gen. Ne Win had essentially ruined one of the most prosperous and literate nations in Southeast Asia, relegating it to the status of "basket case" by the spring of 1988, when Suu Kyi returned to care for her ailing mother just as student demonstrations began to erupt in response to economic oppression. Urged to take up the banner of democracy in the name of her father, she began to make her first speeches about the military crackdown, referring to her father's assassination: "People have been saying I know nothing of Burmese politics. The trouble is, I know too much." Harassment only fed her determination and popularity, and separation from her husband and sons did not deter her. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, Suu Kyi could not claim it until the end of her house arrest 20 years later, thanks to international pressure by Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, among others. Pederson visited her subject several times, and she draws a deeply nuanced portrait of the enigmatic, inspiring leader.

Kirkus Reviews