Michael Charney:  

I have lived in and teach, research, and write about Burma (Myanmar), where Cyclone Nargis hit last year, Thailand, and often about Southeast Asia as a whole. I am mainly interested in intellectual, cultural, and technological history and their intersections. My wife also works on Burma (we met in an intensive Burmese language course in Madison Wisconsin in the summer of 1994 and have been together since), but on medical history and colonialism. We live in London, which still has a lot left over from the Victorian period. London is my second "big city" after two years in Singapore, 1999-2001, where I did my post-doc (National University of Singapore), which was a lot more fun than it sounds. Its my wife's second "big city" as well after having lived in Tokyo for four years (after growing up in northern Kyushu). I teach in Bloomsbury, at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The building next to the school is "senate house"--a tall imposing structure made of stone that is said to have given George Orwell his inspiration for "1984". SOAS was set up in 1916 to train colonial administrators, but now focuses on research and teaching related to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. You can find details of my books on the web, most recently Southeast Asian Warfare, 1300-1900 (200...Expand for more