Brief History of Indonesia. Tim Hannigan

ection>

      

      A BRIEF HISTORY OF

       INDONESIA

       SULTANS, SPICES, AND TSUNAMIS:

       THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA’S LARGEST NATION

      TIM HANNIGAN

      TUTTLE Publishing

       Tokyo | Rutland, Vermont | Singapore

      ABOUT TUTTLE

       “Books to Span the East and West”

      Our core mission at Tuttle Publishing is to create books which bring people together one page at a time. Tuttle was founded in 1832 in the small New England town of Rutland, Vermont (USA). Our fundamental values remain as strong today as they were then—to publish best-in-class books informing the English-speaking world about the countries and peoples of Asia. The world has become a smaller place today and Asia’s economic, cultural and political infl uence has expanded, yet the need for meaningful dialogue and information about this diverse region has never been greater. Since 1948, Tuttle has been a leader in publishing books on the cultures, arts, cuisines, languages and literatures of Asia. Our authors and photographers have won numerous awards and Tuttle has published thousands of books on subjects ranging from martial arts to paper crafts. We welcome you to explore the wealth of information available on Asia at www.tuttlepublishing.com.

      Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

       www.tuttlepublishing.com

      Copyright © 2015 by Tim Hannigan

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Hannigan, Tim, author.

       A brief history of Indonesia : sultans, spices, and tsunamis : the incredible story of Southeast Asia’s largest nation / by Tim Hannigan.

       -- First edition.

       pages cm

       Includes bibliographical references and index.

       ISBN 978-0-8048-4476-5 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-4629-1716-7 (ebook) 1. Indonesia--History. I. Title.

       DS634.H35 2015

       959.8--dc23

      2015011166

      ISBN 978-0-8048-4476-5

      Distributed by:

      North America, Latin America & Europe

       Tuttle Publishing

       364 Innovation Drive

       North Clarendon, VT 05759 9436, USA

       Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]

       [email protected] www.tuttlepublishing.com

      Asia Pacific

       Berkeley Books Pte Ltd

       61 Tai Seng Avenue #02-12; Singapore 534167

       Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]

       [email protected]; www.periplus.com

      Indonesia

       PT Java Books Indonesia

       Kawasan lndustri Pulogadung

       Jl. Rawa Gelam IV No.9, Jakarta 13930

       Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]

       [email protected]www.periplus.com

      Japan

       Tuttle Publishing

       Yaekari Building, 3rd Floor,

       5-4-12 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku;

       Tokyo 141 0032, Japan

       Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]

       [email protected]; www.tuttle.co.jp

      First edition

       18 17 16 15 4 5 3 2 1510CM

       Printed in China

      TUTTLE PUBLISHING® is a registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

	CONTENTS
	Preface
	Point of Departure: The Archipelago
CHAPTER 1	From Hobbits to Hinduism: Prehistory to Indianisation
CHAPTER 2	Empires of Imagination: Hindu-Buddhist Java
CHAPTER 3	Saints and Winners: The Arrival of Islam
CHAPTER 4	Spice Invaders: The Europeans Arrive
CHAPTER 5	The Clash of Civilisations: From Company to Empire
CHAPTER 6	Rust en Orde: The Dutch East Indies
CHAPTER 7	Brave New World: The Rise of Nationalism
CHAPTER 8	Freedom or Death: War and Revolution
CHAPTER 9	Years of Living Dangerously: The Sukarno Era
CHAPTER 10	A New Order: Suharto, Crisis, Reform
EPILOGUE:	Indonesia, Rising
	Further Reading
	Bibliography
	Index

      Preface

      The first time I arrived in Indonesia I went straight to the bookshop. I was an earnest young backpacker with a passion for history; I had three months of island-hopping ahead of me, and I wanted something to read on the journey.

      I had spent much of the previous year travelling in India, and I had gorged myself on books about that country. There had been travelogues and reporters’ memoirs that made light work of India’s past; there were pop history accounts of the Indian independence struggle that read like airport thrillers, and any number of bright and breezy books tackling everything from the Mauryans to Mahatma Gandhi in a manner that any traveller could understand. Now I wanted to find the same sort of stuff about Indonesia.

      I had touched down in Bali, at the height of the rainy season. The bookshop was on the top floor of a department store in the heart of Kuta, a bustling beach town on the west coast. I made my way between the racks of batik shirts, past wood carvings and painted scenes of rice fields, and entered the bright, book-filled space. At first glance things seemed promising: there were shelves full of books about Indonesia. But once I had skimmed the guidebooks and the language primers I found something strange: here, in a shop targeting tourists in the middle of Bali’s brashest resort, many of the books on sale were academic tomes. There was certainly plenty of history, but most of it came weighted with heavy footnotes, and much of it tackled obscure topics. There were even serious works of sociology and anthropology on offer to the sunburnt shoppers. But when it came to pithy pop history page-turners and lightweight travelogues, there was a distinct deficit. The few non-scholarly books available were mostly either memoirs of life in Bali, or reprints of things penned well over a century ago. Indonesia, it seemed, was something