Indonesia: Peoples and Histories [Hardcover]

Jean Gelman Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2003

Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world. It comprises more than 17,000 islands inhabited by 230 million people who speak over 300 different languages. Now the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia remains extraordinarily heterogeneous due to the waves of immigration - Buddhist, Hindu, Arab, and European - that have defined the region's history. Fifty years after the collapse of Dutch colonial rule, Indonesia is a nation in the midst of dramatic upheaval. In this broad survey, Jean Gelman Taylor explores the connections between the nation's many communities, and the differences that propel contemporary breakaway movements. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including art, archaeology and literature, Taylor provides a historical overview from the prehistoric period to the present day. The text is enlivened by brief "capsule" histories on topics ranging from pepper to Maharajas to smallpox.

Editorial Reviews

Review

. . . . One great historical essay. . . . [that] provides insight into the many levels of Indonesian history and society. -- Choice

. . . . Taylor’s. . . .approach challenges and opens the mind. . . . [She] is a voluptuous writer. -- Jaime James, Los Angeles Times Book Review

About the Author

Jean Gelman Taylor is a senior lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (April 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300097093
• ISBN-13: 978-0300097092
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,573,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quirky history for an eccentric nation, December 13, 2003

By 

Nicholas Dujmovic (Vienna, Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Indonesia: Peoples and Histories (Hardcover)

This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in Indonesia. It is not a standard sort of history, but its value lies in how the author brilliantly weaves together strands of Indonesia's prehistory, colonial history, and history as an independent nation--it reminds one of Churchill's maxim about the Balkans, that the region has to be a net exporter of history because it produces too much for local consumption. This book also demonstrates why the Australians are absolutely first-rate in Indonesian studies (look at a map--they have to be). Another huge plus are the extremely valuable capsule histories scattered throughout--little gems that capture small topics deftly. My only criticism is about the author's writing style: hardly "voluptuous" as one reviewer put it (what does voluptuous writing look like?)--but in fact it's fairly inelegant; the list approach to making your points.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ignores Indonesia's past, December 20, 2007

By 

Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Indonesia: Peoples and Histories (Paperback)

This book spends less than 60 pages describes the rich and diverse pre-Islamic past of Indonesia. The rest of the book treats Indonesia as if it has always been an Islamic state. But even into the late 19th century it was not a majority Muslim, until a series of ethnic-cleansing campaigns aimed at Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Chinese suceeded in making it so.

This book is basically a history of Islamic Indonesia and does'nt offer much to those interested in the great diversity of the country or of its rich and ancient history.

Seth J. Frantzman

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars GayBuddhistLawyer, February 20, 2006

By 

Robert C. La Mont "GayBuddhistLawyer" (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Indonesia: Peoples and Histories (Hardcover)

While this has a lot to recommend it, the author seems to be excessively politically correct. It would seem that she has no familiarity with mainstream economic analysis, but is perhaps overly familiar with Marxist economics. She seems to feel that value is only created by farmers/laborers and needs to remind of it. Her many boxed digressions are interesting, but the one on Hinduism and Buddhism is so strange, that it did make me question the validity of her work in areas I'm less familiar with. She says that the Dutch did not try to convert the Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist Indonesians because they regarded Asians as essentially different (inferentially a racist outlook). I would like to know her source for this, since the pragmatic observation that there were far too many of them and they were too attached to their religions to make forced conversion possible seems like a much more obvious reason for the decision.