At least in academic circles, it’s hardly possible to write or speak about the country on which this blog focuses without making an opening remark about terminology. Burma or Myanmar? It’s an established routine. My own policy (which I won’t impose on anyone submitting a post to this blog) is to use Burma and associated terms (Irrawaddy, Pagan, Rangoon, etc) if discussing the period up to June 1989. If focusing on the quarter-century thereafter, I use Myanmar and associated terms (Ayeyarwady, Bagan, Yangon, etc). Why so? Partly it’s because this is the practice adopted by most of international society. Mainly, though, it’s because the terminology officially decreed by a small clique of senior generals in 1989 strikes me as a fitting way to describe the country they sought, and in many respects still seek, to shape in their own image. Burma and associated names can then be used not only in appropriate historical ways, but also as aspirational terms for the time when the land is liberal, democratic and respectful of human rights.