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"4 Minutes" was released as the album's lead single and peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. It was Madonna's 37th top-ten hit on the chart—it pushed Madonna past Elvis Presley as the artist with the most top-ten hits. In the UK she retained her record for the most number-one singles for a female artist; "4 Minutes" becoming her thirteenth. At the 23rd Japan Gold Disc Awards, Madonna received her fifth Artist of the Year trophy from Recording Industry Association of Japan, the most for any artist. To further promote the album, Madonna embarked on the Sticky & Sweet Tour; her first major venture with Live Nation. With a gross of $280 million, it became the highest-grossing tour by a solo artist then, surpassing the previous record Madonna set with the Confessions Tour; it was later surpassed by Roger Waters' The Wall Live. It was extended to the next year, adding new European dates, and after it ended, the total gross was $408 million. |
Life with My Sister Madonna, a book by Madonna's brother Christopher, debuted at number two on The New York Times bestseller list. The book caused some friction between Madonna and her brother, because of the unsolicited publication. Problems also arose between Madonna and Ritchie, with the media reporting that they were on the verge of separation. Ultimately, Madonna filed for divorce from Ritchie, citing irreconcilable differences, which was finalized in December 2008. She decided to adopt from Malawi. The country's High Court initially approved the adoption of Chifundo "Mercy" James; however, the application was rejected because Madonna was not a resident of the country. Madonna appealed, and on June 12, 2009, the Supreme Court of Malawi granted Madonna the right to adopt Mercy James. She also released Celebration, her third greatest-hits album and final release with Warner. It contained the new songs "Celebration" and "Revolver" along with 34 hits spanning her career. Celebration reached number one in the UK, tying her with Elvis Presley as the solo act with most number one albums in the British chart history. She appeared at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on September 13, 2009, to speak in tribute to deceased pop star Michael Jackson. |
Controversy erupted when Madonna decided to adopt from Malawi again. Chifundo "Mercy" James was finally adopted in June 2009. Madonna had known Mercy from the time she went to adopt David. Mercy's grandmother had initially protested the adoption, but later gave in, saying "At first I didn't want her to go but as a family we had to sit down and reach an agreement and we agreed that Mercy should go. The men insisted that Mercy be adopted and I won't resist anymore. I still love Mercy. She is my dearest." Mercy's father was still adamant saying that he could not support the adoption since he was alive. |
Madonna performed at the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief concert in January 2010. In April she released her third live album, Sticky & Sweet Tour. It was her first release under Live Nation, but was distributed by Warner Bros. Madonna granted American TV show Glee the rights to her entire catalogue of music, and the producers planned an episode featuring Madonna songs exclusively. Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna, an EP containing eight cover versions of Madonna songs featured in the episode, was released afterward and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. |
Madonna released the Material Girl clothing line, which she designed with her daughter, Lourdes. The 1980s inspired clothing line, borrowed from Madonna's punk-girl style when she rose to fame in the 1980s, was released under the Macy's label. Madonna also opened a series of fitness centers around the world named Hard Candy Fitness. In November 2011, Madonna and MG Icon announced the release of a second fashion brand called Truth or Dare by Madonna to include footwear, underclothing, and accessories. She also directed her second feature film, W.E., a biographic about the affair between King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson; it was co-written with Alek Keshishian. Critical and commercial response to the film was negative. Madonna contributed the ballad "Masterpiece" for the film's soundtrack, which won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. |
In 2012, Madonna performed at Super Bowl XLVI halftime show, visualized by Cirque Du Soleil and Jamie King and featured special guests LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A. and Cee Lo Green. It became the then most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history with 114 million viewers, higher than the game itself. It was also revealed that the singer had signed a three-album deal with Interscope Records, who would act as the distributor in partnership with her 360 deal with Live Nation. Her twelfth studio album, MDNA, was released in March 2012 and saw collaboration with various producers, most notably with William Orbit again and Martin Solveig. The album was well received by music critics, with Priya Elan from NME calling it "a ridiculously enjoyable romp", citing its "psychotic, soul-bearing stuff" as "some of the most visceral stuff she's ever done." MDNA debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and many other countries worldwide. Madonna surpassed Elvis Presley's record for the most number-one album by a solo artist in the UK. The lead single "Give Me All Your Luvin'", featuring guest vocals from Minaj and M.I.A., became Madonna's record-extending 38th top-ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100. |
The MDNA Tour, which further promoted the album, began in May 2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel. The tour has received positive critical reception, but featured controversial subjects such as violence, firearms, human rights, nudity and politics. Lawsuits threatened against Madonna have also been engaged from the tour. It was a box office success with a gross of $305.2 million from 88 sold-out shows, and became the highest-grossing tour of 2012 and the tenth highest-grossing tour of all time. At the 2013 Billboard Music Awards, Madonna won three trophies for Top Touring Artist, Top Dance Artist and Top Dance Album. Madonna was named the top-earning celebrity of the year by Forbes, earning an estimated $125 million, due to the success of the tour. |
By 2013, Madonna's Raising Malawi organization built ten schools to educate 4,000 children in Malawi at a value of $400,000. When Madonna visited the schools in April 2013, President of Malawi Joyce Banda expressed criticism of the star and her charity, accusing her of exaggerating her charity's contribution. Madonna responded by releasing a statement saying she was saddened that Banda had chosen to act negatively about her endeavors. "I have no intention of being distracted by these ridiculous allegations," she added. Later, it was confirmed that Banda had not approved the statement released written by her press team and was "incandescent with anger" over the mix-up. |
Working with photographer Steven Klein, Madonna completed a 17-minute film called secretprojectrevolution. The BitTorrent company was selected by Madonna to release the film as part of a Madonna bundle. It was released on September 24, 2013, and consisted of the 17-minute film, its stills, a Vice interview, and a message from Madonna. With the film she launched the Art for Freedom initiative, which helped to promote "art and free speech as a means to address persecution and injustice across the globe". The website for the project has had over 3,000 art related submissions since its inception, with Madonna regularly monitoring and enlisting the help of other artists like David Blaine and Katy Perry as guest curators. |
From the beginning of 2014, Madonna began to make multiple media appearances. She appeared at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in January 2014, performing "Open Your Heart" alongside rappers Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and singer Mary Lambert, who sang their single "Same Love", as 33 couples were wed onstage, officiated by Queen Latifah. Days later, she joined singer Miley Cyrus on her MTV Unplugged special, singing a mash-up of "Don't Tell Me" and Cyrus' single "We Can't Stop" (2013). She also extended her business ventures and in February 2014 the singer premiered MDNA Skin, a range of skin care products, in Tokyo, Japan. After visiting her hometown of Detroit during May 2014, Madonna decided to contribute funds to three of the city's organizations, to help eliminate poverty from there. The singer released a statement saying that she was inspired by their work, adding that "it was obvious to me that I had to get involved and be part of the solution to help Detroit recover". |
Madonna also began work on her thirteenth studio album, with collaborators including Avicii, Diplo and Natalia Kills. In December 2014, thirteen demos recorded for the album leaked onto the Internet. She posted in response that half of the tracks would not be used on the final release, while the other half had "changed and evolved". The album, titled Rebel Heart, was released on March 10, 2015. From September 2015, she embarked on the Rebel Heart Tour to promote the album; the tour ended in March 2016 and traveled throughout North America, Europe and Asia and was the singer's first visit to Australia in 23 years, where she also performed a one-off show for her fans. It grossed a total of $169.8 million from the 82 shows, with over 1.045 million ticket sales. While on tour Madonna became embroiled in a legal battle with Ritchie, over the custody of her son Rocco. The dispute started when Rocco decided to continue living at England with Ritchie when the Rebel Heart Tour had visited there, while Madonna wanted him to return with her. Court hearings took place in both New York and London, and after multiple deliberations, Madonna decided to withdraw her application for custody, and appealed for a mutual discussion between herself and Ritchie about Rocco. |
Madonna's music has been the subject of much analysis and scrutiny. Robert M. Grant, author of Contemporary Strategy Analysis (2005), commented that what has brought Madonna success is "certainly not outstanding natural talent. As a vocalist, musician, dancer, songwriter, or actress, Madonna's talents seem modest." He asserts Madonna's success is in relying on the talents of others, and that her personal relationships have served as cornerstones to the numerous reinventions in the longevity of her career. Madonna's approach was far from the music industry wisdom of "Find a winning formula and stick to it." Her musical career has been a continuous experimentation with new musical ideas and new images and a constant quest for new heights of fame and acclaim. Grant concluded that "having established herself as the queen of popular music, Madonna did not stop there, but continued re-inventing." Musicologist Susan McClary wrote that "Madonna's art itself repeatedly deconstructs the traditional notion of the unified subject with finite ego boundaries. Her pieces explore various ways of constituting identities that refuse stability, that remain fluid, that resist definition." |
Throughout her career Madonna has been involved in writing and producing most of her own music. Madonna's early songwriting skill was developed during her time with the Breakfast Club in 1979. According to author Carol Gnojewski, her first attempts at songwriting are perceived as an important self-revelation, as Madonna said: "I don't know where [the songs] came from. It was like magic. I'd write a song every day. I said 'Wow, I was meant to do this'." Mark Kamins, her first producer, believed that Madonna is "a much underrated musician and lyricist." Rolling Stone has named her "an exemplary songwriter with a gift for hooks and indelible lyrics." According to Freya Jarman-Ivens, Madonna's talent for developing "incredible" hooks for her songs allows the lyrics to capture the attention of the audience, even without the influence of the music. As an example, Jarman-Ivens cites the 1985 single "Into the Groove" and its line "Live out your fantasy here with me, just let the music set you free; Touch my body, and move in time, now I know you're mine." Madonna's songwriting are often autobiographical over the years, dealing with various themes from love and relationships to self-respect and female empowerment. Her songs also speak about taboo and unconventional issues of their period, such as sexuality and AIDS on Erotica (1992). Many of her lyrics contain innuendos and double entendre, which lead to multiple interpretations among music critics and scholars. Madonna has been nominated for being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame twice, for 2014 and 2016 ceremony. Rolling Stone listed Madonna at number 56 on the "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time". |
Before emerging as a pop star, Madonna has spent her early years in rock music alongside her bands, Breakfast Club and Emmy. While performing with Emmy, Madonna recorded about 12-14 songs which resemble the punk rock of that period. Her early rock roots also can be found on the demo album Pre-Madonna. Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that with her self-titled debut album, Madonna began her career as a disco diva, in an era that did not have any such divas to speak of. In the beginning of the '80's, disco was an anathema to the mainstream pop, and according to Erlewine, Madonna had a huge role in popularizing dance music as mainstream music. The album's songs reveal several key trends that have continued to define her success, including a strong dance-based idiom, catchy hooks, highly polished arrangements and Madonna's own vocal style. Her second album, Like a Virgin (1984), foreshadowed several trends in her later works. It contained references to classical works (pizzicato synthesizer line that opens "Angel"); potential negative reaction from social groups ("Dress You Up" was blacklisted by the Parents Music Resource Center); and retro styles ("Shoo-Bee-Doo", Madonna's homage to Motown). |
Her mature artistic statement was visible in True Blue (1986) and Like a Prayer (1989). In True Blue, she incorporated classical music in order to engage an older audience who had been skeptical of her music. Like a Prayer introduced live recorded songs and incorporated different genres of music, including dance, funk, R&B and gospel music. Her versatility was further shown on I'm Breathless, which consists predominantly of the 1940s Broadway showtune-flavoured jazz, swing and big band tracks. Madonna continued to compose ballads and uptempo dance songs for Erotica (1992) and Bedtime Stories (1994). Both albums explored element of new jack swing, with Jim Farber from Entertainment Weekly saying that "she could actually be viewed as new jack swing's godmother." She tried to remain contemporary by incorporating samples, drum loops and hip hop into her music. With Ray of Light, Madonna brought electronic music from its underground status into massive popularity in mainstream music scene. |
Madonna experimented with more folk and acoustic music in Music (2000) and American Life (2003). A change was noted in the content of the songs in Music, with most of them being simple love songs, but with an underlying tone of melancholy. According to Q magazine, American Life was characterized by "a thumping techno rhythm, liquid keyboard lines, an acoustic chorus and a bizarre Madonna rap." The "conventional rock songs" of the album were suffused with dramatic lyrics about patriotism and composition, including the appearance of a gospel choir in the song "Nothing Fails". Madonna returned to pure dance songs with Confessions on a Dance Floor, infusing club beats and retro music with the lyrics about paradoxical metaphors and reference to her earlier works. Madonna moved to urban direction with Hard Candy (2008), mixing R&B and hip hop music with dance tunes. MDNA (2012) largely focused in electronic dance music, which she has embraced since Ray of Light. |
Possessing a mezzo-soprano vocal range, Madonna has always been self-conscious about her voice, especially in comparison to her vocal idols such as Ella Fitzgerald, Prince, and Chaka Khan. Mark Bego, author of Madonna: Blonde Ambition, called her "the perfect vocalist for lighter-than-air songs", despite not being a "heavyweight talent." According to MSNBC critic Tony Sclafani, "Madonna's vocals are the key to her rock roots. Pop vocalists usually sing songs "straight," but Madonna employs subtext, irony, aggression and all sorts of vocal idiosyncrasies in the ways John Lennon and Bob Dylan did." Madonna used a bright, girlish vocal timbre in her early albums which became passé in her later works. The change was deliberate since she was constantly reminded of how the critics had once labelled her as "Minnie Mouse on helium". During the filming of Evita, Madonna had to take vocal lessons, which increased her range further. Of this experience she commented, "I studied with a vocal coach for Evita and I realized there was a whole piece of my voice I wasn't using. Before, I just believed I had a really limited range and was going to make the most of it." |
Besides singing Madonna has the ability to play several musical instruments. She learned to play drum and guitar from her then-boyfriend Dan Gilroy in the late 1970s before joining the Breakfast Club line-up as the drummer. This helped her to form the band Emmy, where she performed as the guitarist and lead vocalist. Madonna later played guitar on her demo recordings. On the liner notes of Pre-Madonna, Stephen Bray wrote: "I've always thought she passed up a brilliant career as a rhythm guitarist." After her career breakthrough, Madonna focused mainly in singing but was also credited for playing cowbell on Madonna (1983) and synthesizer on Like a Prayer (1989). In 1999, Madonna had studied for three months to play the violin for the role as a violin teacher in the film Music of the Heart, before eventually leaving the project. After two decades, Madonna decided to perform with guitar again during the promotion of Music (2000). She took further lessons from guitarist Monte Pittman to improve her guitar skill. Since then Madonna has played guitar on every tour, as well as her studio albums. At the 2002 Orville H. Gibson Guitar Awards, she received nomination for Les Paul Horizon Award, which honors the most promising up-and-coming guitarist. |
According to Taraborrelli, the defining moment of Madonna's childhood was the tragic and untimely death of her beloved mother. Psychiatrist Keith Ablow suggests her mother's death would have had an immeasurable impact on the young Madonna at a time when her personality was still forming. According to Ablow, the younger a child is at the time of a serious loss, the more profound the influence and the longer lasting the impact. He concludes that "some people never reconcile themselves to such a loss at an early age, Madonna is not different than them." Conversely, author Lucy O'Brien feels the impact of the rape she suffered is, in fact, the motivating factor behind everything Madonna has done, more important even than the death of her mother: "It's not so much grief at her mother's death that drives her, as the sense of abandonment that left her unprotected. She encountered her own worst possible scenario, becoming a victim of male violence, and thereafter turned that full-tilt into her work, reversing the equation at every opportunity." |
As they grew older Madonna and her sisters would feel deep sadness as the vivid memory of their mother began drifting farther from them. They would study pictures of her and come to think that she resembled poet Anne Sexton and Hollywood actresses. This would later raise Madonna's interest in poetry, with Sylvia Plath being her favourite. Later, Madonna commented: "We were all wounded in one way or another by [her death], and then we spent the rest of our lives reacting to it or dealing with it or trying to turn into something else. The anguish of losing my mom left me with a certain kind of loneliness and an incredible longing for something. If I hadn't had that emptiness, I wouldn't have been so driven. Her death had a lot to do with me saying—after I got over my heartache—I'm going to be really strong if I can't have my mother. I'm going to take care of myself." Taraborrelli felt that in time, no doubt because of the devastation she felt, Madonna would never again allow herself, or even her daughter, to feel as abandoned as she had felt when her mother died. "Her death had taught [Madonna] a valuable lesson, that she would have to remain strong for herself because, she feared weakness—particularly her own—and wanted to be the queen of her own castle." |
In 1985, Madonna commented that the first song to ever make a strong impression on her was "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra; she said it summed up her own "take-charge attitude". As a young woman, she attempted to broaden her taste in literature, art, and music, and during this time became interested in classical music. She noted that her favorite style was baroque, and loved Mozart and Chopin because she liked their "feminine quality". Madonna's major influences include Karen Carpenter, The Supremes and Led Zeppelin, as well as dancers Martha Graham and Rudolf Nureyev. She also grew up listening to David Bowie, whose show was the first rock concert she ever attended. |
Madonna's Italian-Catholic background and her relationship with her parents are reflected in the album Like a Prayer. It was an evocation of the impact religion had on her career. Her video for the title track contains Catholic symbolism, such as the stigmata. During The Virgin Tour, she wore a rosary and prayed with it in the music video for "La Isla Bonita". The "Open Your Heart" video sees her boss scolding her in the Italian language. On the Who's That Girl World Tour, she dedicated the song "Papa Don't Preach" to Pope John Paul II. |
During her childhood, Madonna was inspired by actors, later saying, "I loved Carole Lombard and Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe. They were all incredibly funny ... and I saw myself in them ... my girlishness, my knowingness and my innocence." Her "Material Girl" music video recreated Monroe's look in the song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). She studied the screwball comedies of the 1930s, particularly those of Lombard, in preparation for the film Who's That Girl. The video for "Express Yourself" (1989) was inspired by Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis (1927). The video for "Vogue" recreated the style of Hollywood glamour photographs, in particular those by Horst P. Horst, and imitated the poses of Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, and Rita Hayworth, while the lyrics referred to many of the stars who had inspired her, including Bette Davis, described by Madonna as an idol. However, Madonna's film career has been largely received negatively by the film critic community. Stephanie Zacharek, critic for Time magazine, stated that, "[Madonna] seems wooden and unnatural as an actress, and it's tough to watch, because she's clearly trying her damnedest." According to biographer Andrew Morton, "Madonna puts a brave face on the criticism, but privately she is deeply hurt." After the box office bomb Swept Away (2002), Madonna vowed that she would never again act in a film, hoping her repertoire as a bad actress would never be discussed again. |
Influences also came to her from the art world, most notably through the works of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The music video of the song "Bedtime Story" featured images inspired by the paintings of Kahlo and Remedios Varo. Madonna is also a collector of Tamara de Lempicka's Art Deco paintings and has included them in her music videos and tours. Her video for "Hollywood" (2003) was an homage to the work of photographer Guy Bourdin; Bourdin's son subsequently filed a lawsuit for unauthorised use of his father's work. Pop artist Andy Warhol's use of sadomasochistic imagery in his underground films were reflected in the music videos for "Erotica" and "Deeper and Deeper". |
Madonna is dedicated to Kabbalah, and in 2004 she adopted the name Esther which in Persian means "star". She has donated millions of dollars to New York and London schools teaching the subject. She faced opposition from rabbis who felt Madonna's adoption of the Kabbalah was sacrilegious and a case of celebrity dilettantism. Madonna defended her studies, saying: "It would be less controversial if I joined the Nazi Party", and that her involvement with the Kabbalah is "not hurting anybody". The influence of the Kabbalah was subsequently observed in Madonna's music, especially albums like Ray of Light and Music. During the Re-Invention World Tour, at one point in the show, Madonna and her dancers wore T-shirts that read "Kabbalists Do It Better". Her 2012 MDNA album has also drawn many influences from her Catholic upbringing, and since 2011 she has been attending meetings and services at an Opus Dei center, a Catholic institution that encourages spirituality through every day life. |
In The Madonna Companion biographers Allen Metz and Carol Benson noted that more than any other recent pop artist, Madonna had used MTV and music videos to establish her popularity and enhance her recorded work. According to them, many of her songs have the imagery of the music video in strong context, while referring to the music. Cultural critic Mark C. Taylor in his book Nots (1993) felt that the postmodern art form par excellence is video and the reigning "queen of video" is Madonna. He further asserted that "the most remarkable creation of MTV is Madonna. The responses to Madonna's excessively provocative videos have been predictably contradictory." The media and public reaction towards her most-discussed songs such as "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer", or "Justify My Love" had to do with the music videos created to promote the songs and their impact, rather than the songs themselves. Morton felt that "artistically, Madonna's songwriting is often overshadowed by her striking pop videos." |
Madonna's initial music videos reflected her American and Hispanic mixed street style combined with a flamboyant glamor. She was able to transmit her avant-garde downtown New York fashion sense to the American audience. The imagery and incorporation of Hispanic culture and Catholic symbolism continued with the music videos from the True Blue era. Author Douglas Kellner noted, "such 'multiculturalism' and her culturally transgressive moves turned out to be highly successful moves that endeared her to large and varied youth audiences." Madonna's Spanish look in the videos became the fashion trend of that time, in the form of boleros and layered skirts, accessorizing with rosary beads and a crucifix as in the video of "La Isla Bonita". |
Academics noted that with her videos, Madonna was subtly reversing the usual role of male as the dominant sex. This symbolism and imagery was probably the most prevalent in the music video for "Like a Prayer". The video included scenes of an African-American church choir, Madonna being attracted to a statue of a black saint, and singing in front of burning crosses. This mix of the sacred and the profane upset the Vatican and resulted in the Pepsi commercial withdrawal. In 2003, MTV named her "The Greatest Music Video Star Ever" and said that "Madonna's innovation, creativity and contribution to the music video art form is what won her the award." |
Madonna's emergence occurred during the advent of MTV; Chris Nelson from The New York Times spoke of pop artists like Madonna saying, "MTV, with its almost exclusively lip-synched videos, ushered in an era in which average music fans might happily spend hours a day, every day, watching singers just mouth the words." The symbiotic relationship between the music video and lip-syncing led to a desire for the spectacle and imagery of the music video to be transferred to live stage shows. He added, "Artists like Madonna and Janet Jackson set new standards for showmanship, with concerts that included not only elaborate costumes and precision-timed pyrotechnics but also highly athletic dancing. These effects came at the expense of live singing." Thor Christensen of The Dallas Morning News commented that while Madonna earned a reputation for lip-syncing during her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, she has subsequently reorganized her performances by "stay[ing] mostly still during her toughest singing parts and [leaves] the dance routines to her backup troupe ... [r]ather than try to croon and dance up a storm at the same time." |
To allow for greater movement while dancing and singing, Madonna was one of the earliest adopters of hands-free radio-frequency headset microphones, with the headset fastened over the ears or the top of the head, and the microphone capsule on a boom arm that extended to the mouth. Because of her prominent usage, the microphone design came to be known as the "Madonna mic". Metz noted that Madonna represents a paradox as she is often perceived as living her whole life as a performance. While her big-screen performances are panned, her live performances are critical successes. Madonna was the first artist to have her concert tours as reenactment of her music videos. Author Elin Diamond explained that reciprocally, the fact that images from Madonna's videos can be recreated in a live setting enhances the realism of the original videos. Thus her live performances have become the means by which mediatized representations are naturalized. Taraborrelli said that encompassing multimedia, latest technology and sound systems, Madonna's concerts and live performances are deemed as "extravagant show piece, a walking art show." |
Various music journalists, critical theorists, and authors have deemed Madonna the most influential female recording artist of all time. Author Carol Clerk wrote that "during her career, Madonna has transcended the term 'pop star' to become a global cultural icon." Rolling Stone of Spain wrote that "She became the first viral Master of Pop in history, years before the Internet was massively used. Madonna was everywhere; in the almighty music television channels, 'radio formulas', magazine covers and even in bookshops. A pop dialectic, never seen since The Beatles's reign, which allowed her to keep on the edge of tendency and commerciality." Laura Barcella in her book Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop (2012) wrote that "really, Madonna changed everything the musical landscape, the '80s look du jour, and most significantly, what a mainstream female pop star could (and couldn't) say, do, or accomplish in the public eye." William Langley from The Daily Telegraph felt that "Madonna has changed the world's social history, has done more things as more different people than anyone else is ever likely to." Alan McGee from The Guardian felt that Madonna is a post-modern art, the likes of which we will never see again. He further asserted that Madonna and Michael Jackson invented the terms Queen and King of Pop. |
According to Tony Sclafani from MSNBC, "It's worth noting that before Madonna, most music mega-stars were guy rockers; after her, almost all would be female singers ... When The Beatles hit America, they changed the paradigm of performer from solo act to band. Madonna changed it back—with an emphasis on the female." Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, asserted that "Madonna and the career she carved out for herself made possible virtually every other female pop singer to follow ... She certainly raised the standards of all of them ... She redefined what the parameters were for female performers." According to Fouz-Hernández, subsequent female singers such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Kylie Minogue, the Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez, and Pink were like her "daughters in the very direct sense that they grew up listening to and admiring Madonna, and decided they wanted to be like her." Time magazine included her in the list of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century", where she became one of only two singers to be included, alongside Aretha Franklin. She also topped VH1's lists of "100 Greatest Women in Music" and "50 Greatest Women of the Video Era". |
Madonna's use of sexual imagery has benefited her career and catalyzed public discourse on sexuality and feminism. As Roger Chapman documents in Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices, Volume 1 (2010), she has drawn frequent condemnation from religious organizations, social conservatives and parental watchdog groups for her use of explicit, sexual imagery and lyrics, religious symbolism, and otherwise "irreverent" behavior in her live performances. The Times wrote that she had "started a revolution amongst women in music ... Her attitudes and opinions on sex, nudity, style and sexuality forced the public to sit up and take notice." Professor John Fiske noted that the sense of empowerment that Madonna offers is inextricably connected with the pleasure of exerting some control over the meanings of self, of sexuality, and of one's social relations. In Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture (2009), the authors noted that Madonna, as a female celebrity, performer, and pop icon, is able to unsettle standing feminist reflections and debates. According to lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, Madonna represents woman's occupancy of what Monique Wittig calls the category of sex, as powerful, and appears to gleefully embrace the performance of the sexual corvée allotted to women. Professor Sut Jhally has referred to Madonna as "an almost sacred feminist icon." |
Madonna has received acclaim as a role model for businesswomen in her industry, "achieving the kind of financial control that women had long fought for within the industry", and generating over $1.2 billion in sales within the first decade of her career. Professor Colin Barrow from Cranfield School of Management described Madonna as "America's smartest businesswoman ... who has moved to the top of her industry and stayed there by constantly reinventing herself." London Business School academics called her a "dynamic entrepreneur" worth copying; they identified her vision of success, her understanding of the music industry, her ability to recognize her own performance limits (and thus bring in help), her willingness to work hard and her ability to adapt as the keys to her commercial success. Morton wrote that "Madonna is opportunistic, manipulative, and ruthless—somebody who won't stop until she gets what she wants—and that's something you can get at the expense of maybe losing your close ones. But that hardly mattered to her." Hazel Blackmore and Rafael Fernández de Castro in the book ¿Qué es Estados Unidos? from the Fondo de Cultura Económica, noted: "Madonna has been undoubtedly the most important woman in the history of popular music and a great businesswoman in herself; creating fashion, breaking taboos and provoking controversies." |
Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide. The Guinness World Records acknowledged her as the best-selling female recording artist and the fourth best-selling act of all time, behind The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female albums artist in the United States, with 64.5 million certified albums. Madonna is the most certified artist of all time in United Kingdom, with 45 awards from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) as of April 2013. Billboard named Madonna as the top touring female artist of all time. She is also the highest grossing solo touring artist, with over $1.31 billion in concert gross, starting from the Blond Ambition World Tour; she first crossed a billion gross with The MDNA Tour. Overall, Madonna ranks third on all-time top-grossing Billboard Boxscore list, with just The Rolling Stones ($1.84 billion) and U2 ($1.67 billion) ahead of her. Madonna has been honored with 20 MTV Video Music Awards—the most for any artist—including the lifetime achievement Video Vanguard Award in 1986. |
Madonna holds the record for the most number-ones on all combined Billboard charts, including twelve number-one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and eight number-one albums on the Billboard 200. With 45 songs topping the Hot Dance Club Songs chart, Madonna became the artist with the most number-one songs on an active Billboard chart, pulling ahead of George Strait with 44 number-one songs on the Hot Country Songs chart. She has also scored 38 top-ten singles on the Hot 100, more than any other artist in history. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked her at number two, behind The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of American singles chart. |
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the United States Constitution, the foundation of the federal government of the United States. The Constitution sets out the boundaries of federal law, which consists of acts of Congress, treaties ratified by the Senate, regulations promulgated by the executive branch, and case law originating from the federal judiciary. The United States Code is the official compilation and codification of general and permanent federal statutory law. |
Federal law and treaties, so long as they are in accordance with the Constitution, preempt conflicting state and territorial laws in the 50 U.S. states and in the territories. However, the scope of federal preemption is limited because the scope of federal power is not universal. In the dual-sovereign system of American federalism (actually tripartite because of the presence of Indian reservations), states are the plenary sovereigns, each with their own constitution, while the federal sovereign possesses only the limited supreme authority enumerated in the Constitution. Indeed, states may grant their citizens broader rights than the federal Constitution as long as they do not infringe on any federal constitutional rights. Thus, most U.S. law (especially the actual "living law" of contract, tort, property, criminal, and family law experienced by the majority of citizens on a day-to-day basis) consists primarily of state law, which can and does vary greatly from one state to the next. |
Notably, a statute does not disappear automatically merely because it has been found unconstitutional; it must be deleted by a subsequent statute. Many federal and state statutes have remained on the books for decades after they were ruled to be unconstitutional. However, under the principle of stare decisis, no sensible lower court will enforce an unconstitutional statute, and any court that does so will be reversed by the Supreme Court. Conversely, any court that refuses to enforce a constitutional statute (where such constitutionality has been expressly established in prior cases) will risk reversal by the Supreme Court. |
Notably, the most broadly influential innovation of 20th-century American tort law was the rule of strict liability for defective products, which originated with judicial glosses on the law of warranty. In 1963, Roger J. Traynor of the Supreme Court of California threw away legal fictions based on warranties and imposed strict liability for defective products as a matter of public policy in the landmark case of Greenman v. Yuba Power Products. The American Law Institute subsequently adopted a slightly different version of the Greenman rule in Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which was published in 1964 and was very influential throughout the United States. Outside the U.S., the rule was adopted by the European Economic Community in the Product Liability Directive of July 1985 by Australia in July 1992 and by Japan in June 1994. |
Tort law covers the entire imaginable spectrum of wrongs which humans can inflict upon each other, and of course, partially overlaps with wrongs also punishable by criminal law. Although the American Law Institute has attempted to standardize tort law through the development of several versions of the Restatement of Torts, many states have chosen to adopt only certain sections of the Restatements and to reject others. Thus, because of its immense size and diversity, American tort law cannot be easily summarized. |
However, it is important to understand that despite the presence of reception statutes, much of contemporary American common law has diverged significantly from English common law. The reason is that although the courts of the various Commonwealth nations are often influenced by each other's rulings, American courts rarely follow post-Revolution Commonwealth rulings unless there is no American ruling on point, the facts and law at issue are nearly identical, and the reasoning is strongly persuasive. |
The actual substance of English law was formally "received" into the United States in several ways. First, all U.S. states except Louisiana have enacted "reception statutes" which generally state that the common law of England (particularly judge-made law) is the law of the state to the extent that it is not repugnant to domestic law or indigenous conditions. Some reception statutes impose a specific cutoff date for reception, such as the date of a colony's founding, while others are deliberately vague. Thus, contemporary U.S. courts often cite pre-Revolution cases when discussing the evolution of an ancient judge-made common law principle into its modern form, such as the heightened duty of care traditionally imposed upon common carriers. |
Early on, American courts, even after the Revolution, often did cite contemporary English cases. This was because appellate decisions from many American courts were not regularly reported until the mid-19th century; lawyers and judges, as creatures of habit, used English legal materials to fill the gap. But citations to English decisions gradually disappeared during the 19th century as American courts developed their own principles to resolve the legal problems of the American people. The number of published volumes of American reports soared from eighteen in 1810 to over 8,000 by 1910. By 1879 one of the delegates to the California constitutional convention was already complaining: "Now, when we require them to state the reasons for a decision, we do not mean they shall write a hundred pages of detail. We [do] not mean that they shall include the small cases, and impose on the country all this fine judicial literature, for the Lord knows we have got enough of that already." |
Federal law originates with the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to enact statutes for certain limited purposes like regulating interstate commerce. The United States Code is the official compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal statutes. Many statutes give executive branch agencies the power to create regulations, which are published in the Federal Register and codified into the Code of Federal Regulations. Regulations generally also carry the force of law under the Chevron doctrine. Many lawsuits turn on the meaning of a federal statute or regulation, and judicial interpretations of such meaning carry legal force under the principle of stare decisis. |
During the 18th and 19th centuries, federal law traditionally focused on areas where there was an express grant of power to the federal government in the federal Constitution, like the military, money, foreign relations (especially international treaties), tariffs, intellectual property (specifically patents and copyrights), and mail. Since the start of the 20th century, broad interpretations of the Commerce and Spending Clauses of the Constitution have enabled federal law to expand into areas like aviation, telecommunications, railroads, pharmaceuticals, antitrust, and trademarks. In some areas, like aviation and railroads, the federal government has developed a comprehensive scheme that preempts virtually all state law, while in others, like family law, a relatively small number of federal statutes (generally covering interstate and international situations) interacts with a much larger body of state law. In areas like antitrust, trademark, and employment law, there are powerful laws at both the federal and state levels that coexist with each other. In a handful of areas like insurance, Congress has enacted laws expressly refusing to regulate them as long as the states have laws regulating them (see, e.g., the McCarran-Ferguson Act). |
After the President signs a bill into law (or Congress enacts it over his veto), it is delivered to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) where it is assigned a law number, and prepared for publication as a slip law. Public laws, but not private laws, are also given legal statutory citation by the OFR. At the end of each session of Congress, the slip laws are compiled into bound volumes called the United States Statutes at Large, and they are known as session laws. The Statutes at Large present a chronological arrangement of the laws in the exact order that they have been enacted. |
Congress often enacts statutes that grant broad rulemaking authority to federal agencies. Often, Congress is simply too gridlocked to draft detailed statutes that explain how the agency should react to every possible situation, or Congress believes the agency's technical specialists are best equipped to deal with particular fact situations as they arise. Therefore, federal agencies are authorized to promulgate regulations. Under the principle of Chevron deference, regulations normally carry the force of law as long as they are based on a reasonable interpretation of the relevant statutes. |
The difficult question is whether federal judicial power extends to formulating binding precedent through strict adherence to the rule of stare decisis. This is where the act of deciding a case becomes a limited form of lawmaking in itself, in that an appellate court's rulings will thereby bind itself and lower courts in future cases (and therefore also impliedly binds all persons within the court's jurisdiction). Prior to a major change to federal court rules in 2007, about one-fifth of federal appellate cases were published and thereby became binding precedents, while the rest were unpublished and bound only the parties to each case. |
As federal judge Alex Kozinski has pointed out, binding precedent as we know it today simply did not exist at the time the Constitution was framed. Judicial decisions were not consistently, accurately, and faithfully reported on both sides of the Atlantic (reporters often simply rewrote or failed to publish decisions which they disliked), and the United Kingdom lacked a coherent court hierarchy prior to the end of the 19th century. Furthermore, English judges in the eighteenth century subscribed to now-obsolete natural law theories of law, by which law was believed to have an existence independent of what individual judges said. Judges saw themselves as merely declaring the law which had always theoretically existed, and not as making the law. Therefore, a judge could reject another judge's opinion as simply an incorrect statement of the law, in the way that scientists regularly reject each other's conclusions as incorrect statements of the laws of science. |
Unlike the situation with the states, there is no plenary reception statute at the federal level that continued the common law and thereby granted federal courts the power to formulate legal precedent like their English predecessors. Federal courts are solely creatures of the federal Constitution and the federal Judiciary Acts. However, it is universally accepted that the Founding Fathers of the United States, by vesting "judicial power" into the Supreme Court and the inferior federal courts in Article Three of the United States Constitution, thereby vested in them the implied judicial power of common law courts to formulate persuasive precedent; this power was widely accepted, understood, and recognized by the Founding Fathers at the time the Constitution was ratified. Several legal scholars have argued that the federal judicial power to decide "cases or controversies" necessarily includes the power to decide the precedential effect of those cases and controversies. |
In turn, according to Kozinski's analysis, the contemporary rule of binding precedent became possible in the U.S. in the nineteenth century only after the creation of a clear court hierarchy (under the Judiciary Acts), and the beginning of regular verbatim publication of U.S. appellate decisions by West Publishing. The rule gradually developed, case-by-case, as an extension of the judiciary's public policy of effective judicial administration (that is, in order to efficiently exercise the judicial power). The rule of precedent is generally justified today as a matter of public policy, first, as a matter of fundamental fairness, and second, because in the absence of case law, it would be completely unworkable for every minor issue in every legal case to be briefed, argued, and decided from first principles (such as relevant statutes, constitutional provisions, and underlying public policies), which in turn would create hopeless inefficiency, instability, and unpredictability, and thereby undermine the rule of law. |
Under the doctrine of Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (1938), there is no general federal common law. Although federal courts can create federal common law in the form of case law, such law must be linked one way or another to the interpretation of a particular federal constitutional provision, statute, or regulation (which in turn was enacted as part of the Constitution or after). Federal courts lack the plenary power possessed by state courts to simply make up law, which the latter are able to do in the absence of constitutional or statutory provisions replacing the common law. Only in a few narrow limited areas, like maritime law, has the Constitution expressly authorized the continuation of English common law at the federal level (meaning that in those areas federal courts can continue to make law as they see fit, subject to the limitations of stare decisis). |
The other major implication of the Erie doctrine is that federal courts cannot dictate the content of state law when there is no federal issue (and thus no federal supremacy issue) in a case. When hearing claims under state law pursuant to diversity jurisdiction, federal trial courts must apply the statutory and decisional law of the state in which they sit, as if they were a court of that state, even if they believe that the relevant state law is irrational or just bad public policy. And under Erie, deference is one-way only: state courts are not bound by federal interpretations of state law. |
The fifty American states are separate sovereigns, with their own state constitutions, state governments, and state courts. All states have a legislative branch which enacts state statutes, an executive branch that promulgates state regulations pursuant to statutory authorization, and a judicial branch that applies, interprets, and occasionally overturns both state statutes and regulations, as well as local ordinances. They retain plenary power to make laws covering anything not preempted by the federal Constitution, federal statutes, or international treaties ratified by the federal Senate. Normally, state supreme courts are the final interpreters of state constitutions and state law, unless their interpretation itself presents a federal issue, in which case a decision may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by way of a petition for writ of certiorari. State laws have dramatically diverged in the centuries since independence, to the extent that the United States cannot be regarded as one legal system as to the majority of types of law traditionally under state control, but must be regarded as 50 separate systems of tort law, family law, property law, contract law, criminal law, and so on. |
Most cases are litigated in state courts and involve claims and defenses under state laws. In a 2012 report, the National Center for State Courts' Court Statistics Project found that state trial courts received 103.5 million newly filed cases in 2010, which consisted of 56.3 million traffic cases, 20.4 million criminal cases, 19.0 million civil cases, 5.9 million domestic relations cases, and 1.9 million juvenile cases. In 2010, state appellate courts received 272,795 new cases. By way of comparison, all federal district courts in 2010 together received only about 282,000 new civil cases, 77,000 new criminal cases, and 1.5 million bankruptcy cases, while federal appellate courts received 56,000 new cases. |
The law of criminal procedure in the United States consists of a massive overlay of federal constitutional case law interwoven with the federal and state statutes that actually provide the foundation for the creation and operation of law enforcement agencies and prison systems as well as the proceedings in criminal trials. Due to the perennial inability of legislatures in the U.S. to enact statutes that would actually force law enforcement officers to respect the constitutional rights of criminal suspects and convicts, the federal judiciary gradually developed the exclusionary rule as a method to enforce such rights. In turn, the exclusionary rule spawned a family of judge-made remedies for the abuse of law enforcement powers, of which the most famous is the Miranda warning. The writ of habeas corpus is often used by suspects and convicts to challenge their detention, while the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and Bivens actions are used by suspects to recover tort damages for police brutality. |
The law of civil procedure governs process in all judicial proceedings involving lawsuits between private parties. Traditional common law pleading was replaced by code pleading in 24 states after New York enacted the Field Code in 1850 and code pleading in turn was subsequently replaced again in most states by modern notice pleading during the 20th century. The old English division between common law and equity courts was abolished in the federal courts by the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938; it has also been independently abolished by legislative acts in nearly all states. The Delaware Court of Chancery is the most prominent of the small number of remaining equity courts. |
New York, Illinois, and California are the most significant states that have not adopted the FRCP. Furthermore, all three states continue to maintain most of their civil procedure laws in the form of codified statutes enacted by the state legislature, as opposed to court rules promulgated by the state supreme court, on the ground that the latter are undemocratic. But certain key portions of their civil procedure laws have been modified by their legislatures to bring them closer to federal civil procedure. |
Generally, American civil procedure has several notable features, including extensive pretrial discovery, heavy reliance on live testimony obtained at deposition or elicited in front of a jury, and aggressive pretrial "law and motion" practice designed to result in a pretrial disposition (that is, summary judgment) or a settlement. U.S. courts pioneered the concept of the opt-out class action, by which the burden falls on class members to notify the court that they do not wish to be bound by the judgment, as opposed to opt-in class actions, where class members must join into the class. Another unique feature is the so-called American Rule under which parties generally bear their own attorneys' fees (as opposed to the English Rule of "loser pays"), though American legislators and courts have carved out numerous exceptions. |
Criminal law involves the prosecution by the state of wrongful acts which are considered to be so serious that they are a breach of the sovereign's peace (and cannot be deterred or remedied by mere lawsuits between private parties). Generally, crimes can result in incarceration, but torts (see below) cannot. The majority of the crimes committed in the United States are prosecuted and punished at the state level. Federal criminal law focuses on areas specifically relevant to the federal government like evading payment of federal income tax, mail theft, or physical attacks on federal officials, as well as interstate crimes like drug trafficking and wire fraud. |
Some states distinguish between two levels: felonies and misdemeanors (minor crimes). Generally, most felony convictions result in lengthy prison sentences as well as subsequent probation, large fines, and orders to pay restitution directly to victims; while misdemeanors may lead to a year or less in jail and a substantial fine. To simplify the prosecution of traffic violations and other relatively minor crimes, some states have added a third level, infractions. These may result in fines and sometimes the loss of one's driver's license, but no jail time. |
Contract law covers obligations established by agreement (express or implied) between private parties. Generally, contract law in transactions involving the sale of goods has become highly standardized nationwide as a result of the widespread adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code. However, there is still significant diversity in the interpretation of other kinds of contracts, depending upon the extent to which a given state has codified its common law of contracts or adopted portions of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts. |
Myanmar (myan-MAR i/miɑːnˈmɑːr/ mee-ahn-MAR, /miˈɛnmɑːr/ mee-EN-mar or /maɪˈænmɑːr/ my-AN-mar (also with the stress on first syllable); Burmese pronunciation: [mjəmà]),[nb 1] officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. One-third of Myanmar's total perimeter of 1,930 km (1,200 miles) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The country's 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres (261,227 sq mi) in size. Its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city is Yangon (Rangoon). |
Early civilisations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Burma. In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language, culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a brief period the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam as well. The British conquered Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the country became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a democratic nation and then, following a coup d'état in 1962, a military dictatorship. |
For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife and Burma's myriad ethnic groups have been involved in one of the world's longest-running ongoing civil wars. During this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. In 2011, the military junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election, and a nominally civilian government was installed. While former military leaders still wield enormous power in the country, Burmese Military have taken steps toward relinquishing control of the government. This, along with the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, has improved the country's human rights record and foreign relations, and has led to the easing of trade and other economic sanctions. There is, however, continuing criticism of the government's treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes. In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a majority in both houses, ending military rule. |
In English, the country is popularly known as either "Burma" or "Myanmar" i/ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/. Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group. Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from "Bamar", the colloquial form of the group's name. Depending on the register used, the pronunciation would be Bama (pronounced: [bəmà]) or Myamah (pronounced: [mjəmà]). The name Burma has been in use in English since the 18th century. |
Burma continues to be used in English by the governments of many countries, such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Official United States policy retains Burma as the country's name, although the State Department's website lists the country as "Burma (Myanmar)" and Barack Obama has referred to the country by both names. The Czech Republic uses officially Myanmar, although its Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentions both Myanmar and Burma on its website. The United Nations uses Myanmar, as do the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Russia, Germany, China, India, Norway, and Japan. |
Archaeological evidence shows that Homo erectus lived in the region now known as Myanmar as early as 400,000 years ago. The first evidence of Homo sapiens is dated to about 11,000 BC, in a Stone Age culture called the Anyathian with discoveries of stone tools in central Myanmar. Evidence of neolithic age domestication of plants and animals and the use of polished stone tools dating to sometime between 10,000 and 6,000 BC has been discovered in the form of cave paintings near the city of Taunggyi. |
The Bronze Age arrived circa 1500 BC when people in the region were turning copper into bronze, growing rice and domesticating poultry and pigs; they were among the first people in the world to do so. Human remains and artifacts from this era were discovered in Monywa District in the Sagaing Division. The Iron Age began around 500 BC with the emergence of iron-working settlements in an area south of present-day Mandalay. Evidence also shows the presence of rice-growing settlements of large villages and small towns that traded with their surroundings as far as China between 500 BC and 200 AD. Iron Age Burmese cultures also had influences from outside sources such as India and Thailand, as seen in their funerary practices concerning child burials. This indicates some form of communication between groups in Myanmar and other places, possibly through trade. |
Around the second century BC the first-known city-states emerged in central Myanmar. The city-states were founded as part of the southward migration by the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states, the earliest inhabitants of Myanmar of whom records are extant, from present-day Yunnan. The Pyu culture was heavily influenced by trade with India, importing Buddhism as well as other cultural, architectural and political concepts which would have an enduring influence on later Burmese culture and political organisation. |
Pagan's collapse was followed by 250 years of political fragmentation that lasted well into the 16th century. Like the Burmans four centuries earlier, Shan migrants who arrived with the Mongol invasions stayed behind. Several competing Shan States came to dominate the entire northwestern to eastern arc surrounding the Irrawaddy valley. The valley too was beset with petty states until the late 14th century when two sizeable powers, Ava Kingdom and Hanthawaddy Kingdom, emerged. In the west, a politically fragmented Arakan was under competing influences of its stronger neighbours until the Kingdom of Mrauk U unified the Arakan coastline for the first time in 1437. |
Like the Pagan Empire, Ava, Hanthawaddy and the Shan states were all multi-ethnic polities. Despite the wars, cultural synchronisation continued. This period is considered a golden age for Burmese culture. Burmese literature "grew more confident, popular, and stylistically diverse", and the second generation of Burmese law codes as well as the earliest pan-Burma chronicles emerged. Hanthawaddy monarchs introduced religious reforms that later spread to the rest of the country. Many splendid temples of Mrauk U were built during this period. |
Political unification returned in the mid-16th century, due to the efforts of Taungoo, a former vassal state of Ava. Taungoo's young, ambitious king Tabinshwehti defeated the more powerful Hanthawaddy in the Toungoo–Hanthawaddy War (1534–41). His successor Bayinnaung went on to conquer a vast swath of mainland Southeast Asia including the Shan states, Lan Na, Manipur, Mong Mao, the Ayutthaya Kingdom, Lan Xang and southern Arakan. However, the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia unravelled soon after Bayinnaung's death in 1581, completely collapsing by 1599. Ayutthaya seized Tenasserim and Lan Na, and Portuguese mercenaries established Portuguese rule at Thanlyin (Syriam). |
The dynasty regrouped and defeated the Portuguese in 1613 and Siam in 1614. It restored a smaller, more manageable kingdom, encompassing Lower Myanmar, Upper Myanmar, Shan states, Lan Na and upper Tenasserim. The Restored Toungoo kings created a legal and political framework whose basic features would continue well into the 19th century. The crown completely replaced the hereditary chieftainships with appointed governorships in the entire Irrawaddy valley, and greatly reduced the hereditary rights of Shan chiefs. Its trade and secular administrative reforms built a prosperous economy for more than 80 years. From the 1720s onward, the kingdom was beset with repeated Meithei raids into Upper Myanmar and a nagging rebellion in Lan Na. In 1740, the Mon of Lower Myanmar founded the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom. Hanthawaddy forces sacked Ava in 1752, ending the 266-year-old Toungoo Dynasty. |
With Burma preoccupied by the Chinese threat, Ayutthaya recovered its territories by 1770, and went on to capture Lan Na by 1776. Burma and Siam went to war until 1855, but all resulted in a stalemate, exchanging Tenasserim (to Burma) and Lan Na (to Ayutthaya). Faced with a powerful China and a resurgent Ayutthaya in the east, King Bodawpaya turned west, acquiring Arakan (1785), Manipur (1814) and Assam (1817). It was the second-largest empire in Burmese history but also one with a long ill-defined border with British India. |
Konbaung kings extended Restored Toungoo's administrative reforms, and achieved unprecedented levels of internal control and external expansion. For the first time in history, the Burmese language and culture came to predominate the entire Irrawaddy valley. The evolution and growth of Burmese literature and theatre continued, aided by an extremely high adult male literacy rate for the era (half of all males and 5% of females). Nonetheless, the extent and pace of reforms were uneven and ultimately proved insufficient to stem the advance of British colonialism. |
Burmese resentment was strong and was vented in violent riots that paralysed Yangon (Rangoon) on occasion all the way until the 1930s. Some of the discontent was caused by a disrespect for Burmese culture and traditions such as the British refusal to remove shoes when they entered pagodas. Buddhist monks became the vanguards of the independence movement. U Wisara, an activist monk, died in prison after a 166-day hunger strike to protest against a rule that forbade him from wearing his Buddhist robes while imprisoned. |
A major battleground, Burma was devastated during World War II. By March 1942, within months after they entered the war, Japanese troops had advanced on Rangoon and the British administration had collapsed. A Burmese Executive Administration headed by Ba Maw was established by the Japanese in August 1942. Wingate's British Chindits were formed into long-range penetration groups trained to operate deep behind Japanese lines. A similar American unit, Merrill's Marauders, followed the Chindits into the Burmese jungle in 1943. Beginning in late 1944, allied troops launched a series of offensives that led to the end of Japanese rule in July 1945. The battles were intense with much of Burma laid waste by the fighting. Overall, the Japanese lost some 150,000 men in Burma. Only 1,700 prisoners were taken. |
Following World War II, Aung San negotiated the Panglong Agreement with ethnic leaders that guaranteed the independence of Myanmar as a unified state. Aung Zan Wai, Pe Khin, Bo Hmu Aung, Sir Maung Gyi, Dr. Sein Mya Maung, Myoma U Than Kywe were among the negotiators of the historical Panglong Conference negotiated with Bamar leader General Aung San and other ethnic leaders in 1947. In 1947, Aung San became Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council of Myanmar, a transitional government. But in July 1947, political rivals assassinated Aung San and several cabinet members. |
In 1988, unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the government led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country known as the 8888 Uprising. Security forces killed thousands of demonstrators, and General Saw Maung staged a coup d'état and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). In 1989, SLORC declared martial law after widespread protests. The military government finalised plans for People's Assembly elections on 31 May 1989. SLORC changed the country's official English name from the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar" in 1989. |
In August 2007, an increase in the price of diesel and petrol led to Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist monks that were dealt with harshly by the government. The government cracked down on them on 26 September 2007. The crackdown was harsh, with reports of barricades at the Shwedagon Pagoda and monks killed. There were also rumours of disagreement within the Burmese armed forces, but none was confirmed. The military crackdown against unarmed protesters was widely condemned as part of the International reactions to the Saffron Revolution and led to an increase in economic sanctions against the Burmese Government. |
In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis caused extensive damage in the densely populated, rice-farming delta of the Irrawaddy Division. It was the worst natural disaster in Burmese history with reports of an estimated 200,000 people dead or missing, and damage totalled to 10 billion US Dollars, and as many as 1 million left homeless. In the critical days following this disaster, Myanmar's isolationist government was accused of hindering United Nations recovery efforts. Humanitarian aid was requested but concerns about foreign military or intelligence presence in the country delayed the entry of United States military planes delivering medicine, food, and other supplies. |
In October 2012 the number of ongoing conflicts in Myanmar included the Kachin conflict, between the Pro-Christian Kachin Independence Army and the government; a civil war between the Rohingya Muslims, and the government and non-government groups in Rakhine State; and a conflict between the Shan, Lahu and Karen minority groups, and the government in the eastern half of the country. In addition al-Qaeda signalled an intention to become involved in Myanmar. In a video released 3 September 2014 mainly addressed to India, the militant group's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said al-Qaeda had not forgotten the Muslims of Myanmar and that the group was doing "what they can to rescue you". In response, the military raised its level of alertness while the Burmese Muslim Association issued a statement saying Muslims would not tolerate any threat to their motherland. |
Armed conflict between ethnic Chinese rebels and the Myanmar Armed Forces have resulted in the Kokang offensive in February 2015. The conflict had forced 40,000 to 50,000 civilians to flee their homes and seek shelter on the Chinese side of the border. During the incident the government of China was accused of giving military assistance to the ethnic Chinese rebels. Burmese officials have been historically 'manipulated' and pressured by the communist Chinese government throughout Burmese modern history to create closer and binding ties with China, creating a Chinese satellite state in Southeast Asia. |
The goal of the Burmese constitutional referendum of 2008, held on 10 May 2008, is the creation of a "discipline-flourishing democracy". As part of the referendum process, the name of the country was changed from the "Union of Myanmar" to the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar", and general elections were held under the new constitution in 2010. Observer accounts of the 2010 election describe the event as mostly peaceful; however, allegations of polling station irregularities were raised, and the United Nations (UN) and a number of Western countries condemned the elections as fraudulent. |
Opinions differ whether the transition to liberal democracy is underway. According to some reports, the military's presence continues as the label 'disciplined democracy' suggests. This label asserts that the Burmese military is allowing certain civil liberties while clandestinely institutionalising itself further into Burmese politics. Such an assertion assumes that reforms only occurred when the military was able to safeguard its own interests through the transition—here, "transition" does not refer to a transition to a liberal democracy, but transition to a quasi-military rule. |
Since the 2010 election, the government has embarked on a series of reforms to direct the country towards liberal democracy, a mixed economy, and reconciliation, although doubts persist about the motives that underpin such reforms. The series of reforms includes the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, the granting of general amnesties for more than 200 political prisoners, new labour laws that permit labour unions and strikes, a relaxation of press censorship, and the regulation of currency practices. |
The impact of the post-election reforms has been observed in numerous areas, including ASEAN's approval of Myanmar's bid for the position of ASEAN chair in 2014; the visit by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December 2011 for the encouragement of further progress—it was the first visit by a Secretary of State in more than fifty years (Clinton met with the Burmese president and former military commander Thein Sein, as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi); and the participation of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party in the 2012 by-elections, facilitated by the government's abolition of the laws that previously barred the NLD. As of July 2013, about 100 political prisoners remain imprisoned, while conflict between the Burmese Army and local insurgent groups continues. |
In 1 April 2012 by-elections the NLD won 43 of the 45 available seats; previously an illegal organisation, the NLD had never won a Burmese election until this time. The 2012 by-elections were also the first time that international representatives were allowed to monitor the voting process in Myanmar. Following announcement of the by-elections, the Freedom House organisation raised concerns about "reports of fraud and harassment in the lead up to elections, including the March 23 deportation of Somsri Hananuntasuk, executive director of the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), a regional network of civil society organisations promoting democratization." However, uncertainties exist as some other political prisoners have not been released and clashes between Burmese troops and local insurgent groups continue. |
Burma is bordered in the northwest by the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh and the Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh states of India. Its north and northeast border is with the Tibet Autonomous Region and Yunnan province for a Sino-Burman border total of 2,185 km (1,358 mi). It is bounded by Laos and Thailand to the southeast. Burma has 1,930 km (1,200 mi) of contiguous coastline along the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea to the southwest and the south, which forms one quarter of its total perimeter. |
Much of the country lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. It lies in the monsoon region of Asia, with its coastal regions receiving over 5,000 mm (196.9 in) of rain annually. Annual rainfall in the delta region is approximately 2,500 mm (98.4 in), while average annual rainfall in the Dry Zone in central Myanmar is less than 1,000 mm (39.4 in). The Northern regions of Myanmar are the coolest, with average temperatures of 21 °C (70 °F). Coastal and delta regions have an average maximum temperature of 32 °C (89.6 °F). |
Typical jungle animals, particularly tigers and leopards, occur sparsely in Myanmar. In upper Myanmar, there are rhinoceros, wild buffalo, wild boars, deer, antelope, and elephants, which are also tamed or bred in captivity for use as work animals, particularly in the lumber industry. Smaller mammals are also numerous, ranging from gibbons and monkeys to flying foxes and tapirs. The abundance of birds is notable with over 800 species, including parrots, peafowl, pheasants, crows, herons, and paddybirds. Among reptile species there are crocodiles, geckos, cobras, Burmese pythons, and turtles. Hundreds of species of freshwater fish are wide-ranging, plentiful and are very important food sources. For a list of protected areas, see List of protected areas of Myanmar. |
The elections of 2010 resulted in a victory for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. Various foreign observers questioned the fairness of the elections. One criticism of the election was that only government sanctioned political parties were allowed to contest in it and the popular National League for Democracy was declared illegal. However, immediately following the elections, the government ended the house arrest of the democracy advocate and leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, and her ability to move freely around the country is considered an important test of the military's movement toward more openness. After unexpected reforms in 2011, NLD senior leaders have decided to register as a political party and to field candidates in future by-elections. |
Though the country's foreign relations, particularly with Western nations, have been strained, relations have thawed since the reforms following the 2010 elections. After years of diplomatic isolation and economic and military sanctions, the United States relaxed curbs on foreign aid to Myanmar in November 2011 and announced the resumption of diplomatic relations on 13 January 2012 The European Union has placed sanctions on Myanmar, including an arms embargo, cessation of trade preferences, and suspension of all aid with the exception of humanitarian aid. |
Sanctions imposed by the United States and European countries against the former military government, coupled with boycotts and other direct pressure on corporations by supporters of the democracy movement, have resulted in the withdrawal from the country of most US and many European companies. On 13 April 2012 British Prime Minister David Cameron called for the economic sanctions on Myanmar to be suspended in the wake of the pro-democracy party gaining 43 seats out of a possible 45 in the 2012 by-elections with the party leader, Aung San Suu Kyi becoming a member of the Burmese parliament. |
Despite Western isolation, Asian corporations have generally remained willing to continue investing in the country and to initiate new investments, particularly in natural resource extraction. The country has close relations with neighbouring India and China with several Indian and Chinese companies operating in the country. Under India's Look East policy, fields of co-operation between India and Myanmar include remote sensing, oil and gas exploration, information technology, hydro power and construction of ports and buildings. |
In 2008, India suspended military aid to Myanmar over the issue of human rights abuses by the ruling junta, although it has preserved extensive commercial ties, which provide the regime with much-needed revenue. The thaw in relations began on 28 November 2011, when Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich and his wife Ludmila arrived in the capital, Naypyidaw, the same day as the country received a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who also met with pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. International relations progress indicators continued in September 2012 when Aung San Suu Kyi visited to the US followed by Myanmar's reformist president visit to the United Nations. |
In May 2013, Thein Sein became the first Myanmar president to visit the White House in 47 years; the last Burmese leader to visit the White House was Ne Win in September 1966. President Barack Obama praised the former general for political and economic reforms, and the cessation of tensions between Myanmar and the United States. Political activists objected to the visit due to concerns over human rights abuses in Myanmar but Obama assured Thein Sein that Myanmar will receive US support. The two leaders discussed to release more political prisoners, the institutionalisation of political reform and rule of law, and ending ethnic conflict in Myanmar—the two governments agreed to sign a bilateral trade and investment framework agreement on 21 May 2013. |
Myanmar has received extensive military aid from China in the past Myanmar has been a member of ASEAN since 1997. Though it gave up its turn to hold the ASEAN chair and host the ASEAN Summit in 2006, it chaired the forum and hosted the summit in 2014. In November 2008, Myanmar's political situation with neighbouring Bangladesh became tense as they began searching for natural gas in a disputed block of the Bay of Bengal. Controversy surrounding the Rohingya population also remains an issue between Bangladesh and Myanmar. |
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