Maurice CollisBesprekingen

A compact, concise biography of Thomas Stamford Raffles - born on a West Indiaman of which his father was Captain, in the Caribbean. The year was 1781, not long after the American Revolution and when other great changes were presaged - including the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon and the struggle to abolish slavery (at least insofar as it pertained to Britain). Raffles was to play a part in the wake of these paradigm changes - governing in Java after the Dutch were dislodged, emancipating slaves (ahead of his time and well beyond the scope of his orders) and even visiting Napoleon at the start of his exile on St Helena. However, Raffles everlasting monument was the founding of Singapore, not by force of arms but by skilful diplomacy and legal means, outflanking the Dutch. By all accounts Raffles was a humane and unusually far-sighted thinker, a strategist with the Nelson touch of action this day. He found time to amass a quantity of animal and plant data - re-discovering the ruins of Borobudur (of which the Dutch were apparently unaware of or at least uninterested in). He published a foundational history of Java and, in his short-lived retirement, was one of the founders of London Zoo. His personal life involved great tragedy - losing four of five children to tropical disease, and bore a long-term illness (probably a brain tumour) with remarkable equanimity. He died too young and was treated appallingly by his employer, The East India Company, but he was a giant of a man and this biography is a testament to that.

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"Den fantastiska berättelsen om hur sexhundra man erövrade Mexiko år 1519."

Las aventuras de Marco Polo, el comerciante veneciano que atravesó toda Asia para llegar a la corte del Gran Khan.

Surprisingly readable and fascinating account summarizing events leading up to the "Opium War" - but not very much on the war itself. Starting with an overview of the trade concessions granted by the Chinese Emperor for Westerners to buy and sell at Canton only (while less scrupulous merchants illegally traded in opium at additional ports up the Chinese coast), the book encompasses the assignments of Lord Napier and Captain Elliott as successive chief plenipotentiaries to Canton and their attempts to force trade wide open.

The book is mostly sourced from firsthand accounts and contemporary correspondence dating back to the 1830s; Collis himself wrote it in 1946, and the prejudices of both eras are on display, though fortunately less frequently than one might fear. The foolishness and clever stupidity of the British elite is well-represented, if not couched in such terms, as Lord Palmerston's refusal to issue any more than broad strategic guidance to Napier and Elliott hinder the development of a concerted and effective local policy.

This story isn't so much one about war; it is about the outbreak of war and about two cultures utterly alien to one another, with diverging strategic interests and foundational worldviews leading to fundamental disagreement, and internal factors turning that disagreement into armed conflict. For that reason alone, it's well worth reading.

Very engaging book, which covers the author's period as a magistrate in Burma in the very late 1920s and early 1930s, and focuses on some controversial cases he had that caused his relations with his higher-ups to be strained. One involved the beating to death of a servant by two British expats, another, a trial of an Indian nationalist, and a third, injuries in a drunken driving accident where the "perp" was an officer in a Scottish regiment. Interesting to compare this to Orwell's novel "Burmese Days," based on his (Orwell's) experiences in-country in the mid-1920s, or Monckton's book about being a New Guinea Magistrate at the turn of the century. Collis has much more sympathy for the natives, though he's a bit strained at the frankly pompous and manipulating Congress politician he tries for sedition. Well worth a read.

MARCO POLO POR MAURICE COLLIS

El autor aprovecha traducciones de manuscritos y diversas ediciones de los viajes de Marco Polo para escribir este esbozo biográfico al que añade comentarios y algunas explicaciones, que considera necesarias para el lector occidental.

Marco Polo
Uno de los hechos capitales de nuestra historia es el descubrimiento del Oriente, palabra espléndida que abarca la aurora y tantas y famosas naciones. Heródoto, Alejandro de Macedonia, la Biblia, Vasco de Gama, Las mil y una noches, Clive y Kipling son diversas etapas de esa aventura, que no ha cesado aún. Otra etapa (la esencial, para Masef ield) es este libro.Venturosamente para nosotros, los genoveses apresaron en 1296 una galera veneciana. La comandaba un hombre, que sería un poco distinto de los demás porque había estado muchos años en Oriente. Ese hombre, Marco Polo, dictó en latín a sucompañero de cautiverio, Rusticiano de Pisa, la larga crónica de sus viajes y la descripción de los reinos explorados por él. Las cárceles parecen propicias a la literatura; recordemos a Verlaine y a Cervantes. El hecho de dictar en latín, no en la lengua vernácula, sugiere que el autor se dirigía a muchos lectores. Marco Polo era un mercader, pero en los tiempos medievales un mercader podía ser Simbad. Por el camino de la seda, por el arduo camino que fatigaron antiguas caravanas para que un paño con figuras llegara a manos de Virgilio lesugiriera un hexámetro, Marco Polo, atravesando cordilleras y arenas, arribó a la China, a Cathay y mereció la protección de Emperador, que le confió intrincadas misiones y lo nombró gobernador de Sung. Fue docto enmuchas escrituras y en muchas lenguas. Marco Polo sabía que lo que imaginan los hombres no es menos real que lo que llaman la realidad. Su libro abunda en maravillas. Enumeremos, casi al azar, la muralla que Alejandro erigió para detener a los tártaros,el paraíso artificial del Viejo de la Montaña, Hassan ibn Sabbah, la región en la que se ve y no se ve el reino de la sombra, la torre de tesoros en la que un rey se muere de hambre, los demonios del desierto que asumen la voz y el rostro de un amigo para perder a los viajeros, el sepulcro de Adán en una cima, los tigres negros...

Fascinating story of a 17C Augustinian missionary who sets out from Goa to convert the people of Arakan, an independent territory on the Bay of Bengal, now within Burma's borders. The first 90 or so pages that chronicle the story of the Portuguese in Portuguese Asia and especially 'Golden Goa' are a good introduction to the subject. Entertaining and easy to read.

Short, readable biography of the founder of Singapore. Includes a few maps but no pictures. The one new fact I learned about Singapore history was that although the island was claimed for England by Raffles in 1819 as a foothold against a Dutch monopoly in SE Asia (and to provide a port for English trading interests enroute to China), England's ownership of Singapore wasn't ratified until 1824. In that year, a diplomatic resolution gave the Netherlands control of all lands south of the Equator, while England was allowed to keep all its territories and ports above the line. Thus Malacca (which the British had returned to Holland in 1816 after the Napoleon Wars) was returned to England at the same time, together with some small previously-held Dutch ports in India. A good example of why, even though one thinks one knows everything there is to know about a subject, reading 'one more book' on a subject almost always pays off.

This book repaid a careful reading at a slower than usual pace. Collis had access to people and documents that no other expert on Burmese independence had. He goes into detail of how impossible the thought of the Japanese invading Burma was to the British, and how helpless they were when caught so unprepared. He explains step by step how Burma's hero, Aung San (father of the current NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi) first treatied with the invading Japanese, then formed a Resistance movement when it became clear they would not let Burma self govern, then finally asked the British to help him get rid of the invaders. In between are snippets of eyewitness accounts of the troubled country. An excellent read that fills in lots of gaps. For example, current accounts of Aung San's assassination indicate there was a mystery surrounding who did it. Read this and you will find compelling evidence that there was no mystery at all.

Maurice Collis was part of the ICS (Indian Civil Service) whose members were also known as the "Heaven-born." He was posted in 1912, serving as a district commissioner and later a district magistrate in Rangoon. He left in 1934 and settled in England. He went back to Burma in early 1938, and with his many contacts travelled throughout the eastern part that borders on China and Thailand, called the Shan states.

This was a rich area historically ruled by the Sawbwas, or princes. Each Sawbwa had a palace, or Haw and multiple wives. When Britain fought its third Burmese war in Mandalay, it offered the Shan princes autonomy within their states in return for leases on timber rights, silver mines and ruby mines. The Shans were happy to oblige, as these were much more favourable terms than those of the cruel Burmese kings. And so, 50 years later, Collis travels here, sleeping in Haws, being offered hospitality by the remaining Brits and Shans, and generally observing the lie of the land. He loved all the peoples of Burma, spoke fluent Burmese, and was an observant and sensitive traveller.

This book made me feel I was travelling with him. He can describe an interior with a minimum of words and make you see it, or a meal and make you taste it. He took pictures, some of which are reproduced. His adventures included a Sawbwa's funeral and a rough ride in an ancient truck with an equally ancient Shan princess, still inspiring the deep respect of the populace although no longer in power. I am inspired to read more by him.

A spirited account of Wat Tyler's rebellion, of which many have heard, but which probably few, even among scholars, could define in twenty-five words or less. It is Collis' contention that within the broader, ongoing context of rural poverty and injustice, the rebellion was triggered by pauses in England's chronic wars with France, pauses which cut off the possibility of plunder and ransom, serious income sources for the English soldiery at all levels, but particularly the yeomanry. In this story the young Richard Plantagenet appears in a very good light for his physical courage and political consistency role in the whole episode. What a contrast with Shakespear's Richard II, who appears by turns vicious and dreamy, neurotic and self-knowing. I have never found anything by Collis which isn't well worth the reading.

A great read, including an apalling yet fascinating account of the Inquisition, up-close and personal -- from a victim's point of view. The Portugese of half a a millenium ago were not content to be imperialists: they had to bring the Inquisition with them.

I decided to investigate this after many listenings of Neil Young's song "Cortes the Killer"; I read this simultaneously with Bernal Diaz's diary.

This biography by Maurice Collis is one of the better anthologies of the life of Sir T.S Raffles I have read to date.

Collis puts up a good argument defending Marco Polo. He has details from other sources that support the claims made by Marco, and they seem to be pretty convincing. He also explains one or two obscure matters. A good book Call No. E 36

Literate, wonderfully written history. A classic.

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Saw, Queen of Burma, fl. 1287 > Fiction/Burma > History > To 1824 > Fiction/Biographical fiction