Mitchel Stuffers
Assistant Editor at CIGH Exeter & PhD Candidate in History, University of Exeter

From Myanmar’s ‘permanent Balkanisation’ to the impact of AI, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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Myanmar faces permanent Balkanisation as the world tilts towards authoritarianism

Adam Simpson
East Asia Forum

More than four years after the 2021 coup, Myanmar remains fragmented. Anti-junta forces continue to hold territory in border regions, but frontlines have hardened and the prospect of overturning military rule appears remote. With the Trump administration disengaged and some regional powers moving towards acceptance of Min Aung Hliang’s regime, shifting global dynamics are entrenching the junta’s position.

Since the February 2021 coup that returned the centre of Myanmar to military rule, much debate has revolved around whether the military junta might collapse. The question has been whether the exiled National Unity Government, its allied People’s Defence Forces and ethnic armed groups can win the civil war and take control of the country. [Continue reading]

Bangladesh court hands ex-PM Hasina death sentence for crimes against humanity

Editorial Team
CNA – Channel News Asia

The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in the 2024 crackdowns against a student-led uprising last year that eventually ousted Sheikh Hasina.

DHAKA: A Bangladesh court sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to death for crimes against humanity on Monday (Nov 17), with cheers breaking out in the packed court as the judge read out the verdict. Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against a student-led uprising last year that eventually ousted her.

The highly anticipated ruling, which was broadcast live on national television, came less than three months before the first polls in the South Asian country of 170 million people since her overthrow in August 2024. “All the … elements constituting crimes against humanity have been fulfilled,” judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the court in Dhaka. [Continue reading]

Walking Lahore, Watching the World

Chris Moffat
Public Books

On a sunny Sunday morning in February 2018, I took a taxi from my guesthouse in the center of Lahore to the outer fringes of the Pakistani metropolis. My destination was the Grand Jamia Masjid in Bahria Town, a new gated community occupying thousands of acres on the city’s southwestern frontier. The mosque, designed by the eminent Pakistani architect Nayyar Ali Dada, provides this real estate development with an iconic centerpiece. Its immensity reflects the vaulting ambitions of its patron, the billionaire business magnate Malik Riaz. The complex has an indoor capacity of 25,000. Its outdoor corridors and courtyard can hold 45,000 more. The gigantic central dome is surrounded by 20 smaller domes, and the interior is elaborately decorated with Turkish carpets and 50 Persian chandeliers.

The mosque was opened to the public in 2014, but at the time of my visit four years later, the rest of Bahria Town still felt like a work in progress. Wide boulevards bordered by young palm trees were mostly empty of vehicles. Rows of completed houses were punctured by empty plots. In the Sector C market, a few open shops (mainly global coffee chains) were outnumbered by concrete building frames surrounded by bamboo scaffolding. But the Grand Jamia Masjid was busy with activity. [Continue reading]

South-east Asia digital economy to surpass US$300 billion in 2025 as it rides AI wave

Sue-Ann Tan
The Straits Times

SINGAPORE – With Singapore continuing to be its anchor, the South-east Asian digital economy is expected to exceed US$300 billion (S$390 billion) by the end of 2025, according to a study out on Nov 11.

Gross merchandise value (GMV) – the value of goods sold on e-commerce platforms, among others – for the region hit US$299 billion as at June 2025. The findings are from an annual report by consultancy Bain & Company, Temasek and Google, and covers Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. [Continue reading]

Artificial Intelligence: A Warning for History

Gordon McKelvie
History Workshop

Recent years have seen an explosion in the use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) across the workplace and the classroom, most prominently Large Language Models such as ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot. As with any innovation, many proponents have made exaggerated claims about the inevitable changes, such as A.I.’s potential to ‘literally rewrite history’. To say that such claims are an exaggeration is not to deny that some types of A.I. may be beneficial to historians. For example, A.I. can help historians to decipher older texts that may be damaged or faded. In one sense, this is part of a longer-term trend in the discipline of history. Since at least the 1980s, historians have regularly been using the latest computer technology to enhance their research. There is therefore nothing new in historians using new technologies.

I am a historian of the British Isles between the years 1300 and 1600. My research normally focuses on the political culture of the period, and I am often happy enough to use quantitative methods in my research. As both a researcher and teacher, I am often told about the potential value of artificial intelligence. This article is a personal reflection on the use of A.I. in research, specifically Microsoft CoPilot. [Continue reading]