For those who wish to study the collections in depth and to gain some appreciation of the more remote and less well-known regions of Burma, this sumptuously-illustrated book is indispensable. It is in fact the second work on Burma that features and is inspired by the remarkable James Green collection at the Brighton Museum. The first, Burma: Frontier Photographs 1918-1935 (published in 2000, edited by Elizabeth Dell) reproduced a selection of Green's 1,600 photographs and explored ways of interpeting these images. Textiles from Burma takes as its starting point the textiles, costumes, dress accessories and weapons - approximately 230 in number - collected by Green in Burma and points out that Green wanted to record how styles of dress reflect group identity and can be used to classify people, whereas the Museum today focuses on individual textiles and on documenting the individals who make, wear and sell them. The book does not claim to be a comprehensive study of Burmese textiles but addresses with great sensitivity issues such as identity, ethnicity and tradition, and also the role and responsibility of museums. The textile collection has expanded to some 550 pieces mostly as a result of recent new acquisitions from Burma that have enabled the Museum to explore how the traditions of dress recorded by Green are interpreted today, and to continue to build records of textile design and production in Burma. Other pieces in the collection have come from people of Burmese origin who have come to live in England or are pieces that have been brought back by people who have lived, worked or travelled in Burma, with perhaps the most notable recent additions to the collection being Shan family heirlooms donated by Eleanor Gaudoin (Clarke - Sao Nang Sum Pu) and Sao Hkam Hip Hpa.