The Idea of Indonesia: A History

Description

Indonesia the nation-state is a miraculous and unlikely construction. At first sight, the material for national unity could not be more unpromising; its history is marred by deep and often bloody internal disputation based on ideology, ethnicity, religion, and region. Yet Indonesia, as concept and as nation-state, endures and is, perhaps, beginning once again to thrive. R. E. Elson, one of the leading figures in the field, seeks to discover the origins of the idea of Indonesia in the mid-nineteenth century and explores its often vexed and troubled trajectory through to the present time. He examines why Indonesia exists, against the odds, as a nation-state, and in what different forms it has existed, seeking to explain the nation's character as it has struggled for unity and purpose. The analysis provides a chronological narrative which examines Indonesian politics, its political elites and their relationship with the Indonesian people.

R. E. Elson is Professor of Southeast Asian History at the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, The University of Queensland, Australia. He has written extensively on the modern history of Indonesia and Southeast Asia and his previous publications include Suharto: A Political Biography (2002) and The End of Peasantry in Southeast Asia: A Social and Economic History of Peasant Livelihood, 1800-1990s (1997).

'This is a formidable piece of scholarship ... Elson gives us chapter and verse on, particularly, the early intellectual history of the 'idea of Indonesia', and yet manages to make his detailed scholarly account accessible to the general reader and those with expertise in other world regions. ... Elson's impressive base is the one from which any new discourse must begin.' William H. Frederick, Ohio University