"WHAT THESE FOUR QUITE different books broadly share is a focus on the role of the state in Myanmar society. Current scholarship describes the authoritarian state in Myanmar, which has been controlled by the army since 1962, as either dominantly present or neglectfully absent. Censorship and the repression of autonomous spaces in society, on the one hand, and the failure of the state to enforce efficient health and environmental policies, on the other, are keywords in these works that illustrate the double-faced appearance of the state’s existence and role in society. Myanmar: The State, Community and the Environment is a collection of twelve papers presented at the seventh Myanmar/Burma Update conference in Singapore in July 2006. Since 1999, the aim of the Myanmar/Burma Update conferences based at the Australian National University has been to record recent developments and report on current issues. Like the other published tomes of the Update conferences (the latest being Ruling Myanmar: From Cyclone Nargis to National Elections edited by Nick Cheesman, Monique Skidmore, and Trevor Wilson, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2010), this volume provides information on a country that has been represented in the international media in a simplistic and monotonous way precisely because it has remained vastly understudied. The 2006 conference tried to assess political and military developments after the purging of Prime Minister (Lt. Gen.) Khin Nyunt from power, dealt with the economic situation after the banking crisis of 2001, and pioneered an examination of the environmental and social impact of the exploitation of natural resources. The authors are deeply familiar with or have been professionally involved with the country for extended periods of time, which is largely responsible for the quality of their observations. Vicky Bowman, a former British ambassador, gives a depressing account of the country’s political situation in 2006. Against the background of the excessively slow implementation of the seven-step roadmap towards democracy, the authoritarian leadership was trying to consolidate its support in rural areas while the major opposition group, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was weak and effectively marginalized. Bowman’s bleak outlook on political and economic progress is mirrored in Sean Turnell’s account of the economy in 2006 and Trevor Wilson’s paper on foreign policy..."