"A well-informed academic volume such as this on ethinicity in Burma has been much needed, and any audience will find the chapters richly informative and many of them stimulating." Reviewed by Hayami Yoko, Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 46, no. 3, 2008

 … timely and highly welcome to specialists on Southeast Asia and ethnicity in general. … [T]he volume in its entirety is certainly a storehouse containing a wide array of mutually complementary information and thematic aspects that converge into a rich, multifaceted overall picture unmatched by any other recent publication on Burma. It is simply a must for scholars concerned with Burmese society as well as for anyone interested in the future of this country or the complexities of ethnic identification.

Reviewed by Prof. Dr. Roland Mischung, University of Hamburg, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 28 (4), 2009

This volume ... helps to fill a twofold gap in the scholarly literature in ethnicity in mainland Southeast Asia, namely a lack of evidence from within Burma and a dearth of historical data on ethnic formation. ... The volume as a whole provides a very useful cross-section of research on ethnicity in Burma leading up to a critical juncture in its history.

Reviewed by William Womack, SOAS Bulletin Burma Research, vol. 6, 2008

"...contains useful information about Burma's main, non-Burman ethnic groups."

Reviewed by Bertil Lintner, The Irrawaddy, October 2007

... both timely and politically highly relevant. It analyses the historical formation of ethnic identity in Burma in relation to British colonial rule and the post-colonial Burmese state with its emphasis on unitary nationalism and its efforts to promote “Myanmarification”.

Reviewed by Jasmin Lorch, Internationales Asienforum, 39 (1-2), 2008

Gravers’ edited volume, Exploring ethnic diversity in Burma, offers a much-needed interdisciplinary addition to Southeast Asian Studies in general, as well as Burma studies in particular, as it unites the work of eight scholars of Burma to discuss the various issues of ethnic categorisation, politics and conceptualisation in the country. As Gravers rightly notes, the book is the first of its kind in several decades, and represents a crucial step in redressing the fact that much popular discourse conflates Burma Studies with Bamar Studies. In so doing, the volume not only surveys and problematises the ways in which political and geographic understandings of human diversity in the region have led both to conflict and resistance, but also seeks to examine how ethnic categories and exception have often defied those very categories as well.

Reviewed by Jane Ferguson, Australian National University, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40 (3), 2009

Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma is ... a most welcome contribution not only to our understanding of the current situation in this important Southeast Asian country, it also enriches theoretical discourses on ethnicity and nationhood.

Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma is an important contribution to understanding the ethnic factor in present-day Burmese politics.  It is also highly recommended to students of other mutltiethnic societies in Southeast Asia and outside the region.

Reviewed by Volker Grabowsky, Anthropos 103.2008