Brian Bocking

This is a fascinating study of a deeply enigmatic figure: U Dhammaloka, a prominent Buddhist monk and anti-colonial activist in early 20th century Burma who was also a working-class white man who was almost certainly born in Dublin in the years immediately after the Great Hunger. He travelled and preached across large parts of southeastern Asia, founded schools and publishing pro-Buddhist, anti-imperialist tracts, and drew both praise and opprobrium in the press.

The three authors—Alicia Turner, Brian Bocking, and Laurence Cox—have done an admirable job in tracking such a slippery figure across four continents, and showing what his career tells us about transnational networks and working-class solidarities, British colonialism and pan-Buddhist movements and Irishness, during this tumultuous period. The authors' transparency about the methods they used, and the archival silences they encountered (for example, it's not known where or when Dhammaloka died, and his birth name is uncertain) would also make this a great text to use in the undergraduate history classroom. Even after a decade's worth of focused research by three scholars from separate fields, much about Dhammaloka's life and career is still elusive—and yet surely also urges much new research.… (meer)