Customer Reviews

A History of Modern Indonesia

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1. History is best told when it isn't a litany of dates and places and names.

2. History is better told when it attempts to describe the zeitgeist of the era, when it makes a time and place alive for you.

3. Vickers accomplishes this in describing the history of modern Indonesia, from the late colonial period to the present day. He includes the important dates, but takes special care to note the discourses and debates that shaped the events, and the daily lives of the poor and the rich and those struggling to hold their place in between.

4. I read this book for my research, but found it so compelling that I began to read it for pleasure, a rare turn.

5. Vickers makes sense of the complex and often covert history of Indonesia, which has experienced several volatile changes in the 20th century.

5. The radical shifts in leadership, ideology and policy - from colonialism to Sukarno's near-communism to the still-unsolved coup that confirmed Suharto's dictatorial technocracy, to the protests that overthrew him and invited a string of presidents in the last nine years - are illustrated by how it affected peoples' lives.

6. This is a history that takes into account the effect of political climate on art, literature, film and other manifestations of culture. It notes these arenas as both evidence for the contemporary mindset and as catalysts for change.

7. Vickers uses the voices of Presidents, the voices of laborers, and the voices of everyone in between to bring to life more than one hundred years of history.

8. Whereas other histories treat the cultural sphere and lived lives as separate matters, as anecdotes, as separate chapters, or not at all, Vickers' work is infused with these voices and cultures.

9. In addition, it offers the known history and biographies of important people who helped shape it.

10. One of the best books on Indonesian history that I've read, A History of Modern Indonesia is recommended to the scholarly as well as the curious for a comprehensive and compelling look at the recent history of the fourth largest country in the world.

Preparing to live in Indonesia for 10 months, I bought this book and read it cover to cover. It was not a chore to do so -- far from it! The only dull bit was a few pages in chapter 5, but maybe I was just feeling let down after the excellence of the first four chapters, in which Vickers sums up the Dutch colonial era with no punches pulled and guides us through the birth of nationalism and the revolution that carried Sukarno to power in the new nation in 1949. I felt as if Vickers rather likes Sukarno, while being fully aware of his less admirable traits.

Before reading this book, I had read two and a half of the four novels in Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Buru Quartet, and it's possible that I was particularly well prepared to enjoy Vickers's approach, which brings Pramoedya and related Indonesian writers and journalists into the story from time to time in a way that personalized the history more than you'd see in a typical history text. But I think someone who had no familiarity with Pramoedya's novels (or his life) would not be put off by this approach -- it does not dominate the text or interfere with the thread of history.

Chapter 6 covers the transition from Sukarno to Suharto as clearly as possible (I've read several accounts of this, and Vickers's is the best by far). The rest of the book takes us up to the tsunami of December 2004, and maybe the only real flaw in this text is the brief treatment of the events of 1998 and 1999. Even though that part of the story is not as rich as the years leading up to independence, the final chapters held my interest and helped me become familiar with how the country fared under Suharto and during the time immediately afterward.

I'm filling in the blanks for the 1998-99 time frame with this book: In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos

A particularly excellent aspect of Vickers's text is the careful attention Vickers gives to the role of the United States in various events in Indonesia's history -- immediately after World War II, for example, and in the subjugation of East Timor. The Cold War interests of the U.S. and its view of Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s are given their place in the story. As an American, I appreciated this, even though it was not flattering.

The book includes several wonderful maps, a detailed chronology at the front (three pages), and a very helpful who's who at the end (pages 225-232). I am very, very satisfied with this book!

I read this book to prep for a business school paper I was writing for a global economics final project. I needed a complete summary of Indonesian modern history as quickly as possible.

This book provided the facts that I needed and proved to be a fast and easy read. Some of the timelines traced in the book got a bit confusing, but once I had the background details, I found other online timelines to help with clarification of names and dates. Nothing on line provided, however, provided the detail of this book. It was invaluable in giving me information about politics in Indonesia.

I do not recommend this as a fun or relaxing read, but if you are searching for facts and general knowledge about Indonesian politics, this book is a good start.

My wife is Indonesian and I plan on going soon. So with the problems Indonesia seems to have, I thought it would be wise and educate myself with the people and history. Very good for people that might want to go on extended stays and try to understand the mind set of these people.