Rena Pederson, author of The Burma Spring, has been in touch to point out that in her book's Quick Notice I mentioned that she used the term Burma throughout, although the country's name has been changed to Myanmar. However, I failed to mention she addressed this issue in the following editor's note:
In 1989, Burma’s military rulers changed the official English name of the country from “the Union of Burma” to “the Union of Myanmar.”And in 2010, they changed it once more to “The Republic of the Union of Myanmar.”Some countries—including the United States and the United Kingdom—continued to use the country name Burma because the military government that changed the name to Myanmar was not elected democratically. Since there is now a quasi-civilian government in place, the growing trend has been to use the Myanmar nomenclature around the world. Because it was still the U.S. State Department policy to continue using the country name Burma at the time of this book’s writing, that is the term used predominantly here. Myanmar is also used where appropriate.
Rena has provided an e-mail interview for Asian Books Blog, which will be posted on Tuesday, 31 March.
