Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
From the internationally best-selling writer, a masterful account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonization of the modern world.
On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of people raised a homemade cotton flag and, on behalf of 68 million compatriots, announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first country to rid itself of colonial rule after World War II.
In this vivid history, renowned scholar and celebrated author of Congo David Van Reybrouck captures a period of extraordinary tumult and chaos to tell the story of Indonesia’s momentous revolution, known as the “Revolusi.” Encompassing several hundred years of history, he details the formation of the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese invasion that followed, and the young rebels who engaged in armed resistance once the occupation ended. British and Dutch troops were sent to restore order and keep peace, but instead ignited the first modern war of decolonization. America, too, became embroiled with the Indonesians’ fierce struggle for freedom. That struggle inspired independence movements in Asia, Africa, and the Arab world, especially in the wake of Indonesia’s monumental 1955 Bandung Conference, the first global conference without the West. The whole world had become involved in Revolusi, and the whole world was changed by it.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eyewitness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative, written with remarkable historical clarity and filled with tragedy and passion. A landmark history, Revolusi cements Indonesia’s struggle for independence as one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century and entirely reframes our understanding of post-colonialism.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The war that brought independence to the world's fourth-largest country plays out on a resonantly human scale in this captivating chronicle of the 1945–1949 Indonesian revolution. Historian Van Reybrouck (Congo) paints a rich portrait of a stratified pre-WWII colonial society in the Dutch East Indies, then recaps the upheavals that demolished Dutch authority: the Japanese occupation during WWII that destroyed the colonial administration while giving Indonesians experience in military resistance, the dramatic 1945 declaration of an independent republic, and the chaotic conflict that pitted young republican firebrands against Dutch and pro-Dutch Indonesian forces and later devolved into civil war among Islamist, communist, and nationalist Republican factions. Van Reybrouck's sweeping narrative situates the revolution as the prototype for the rest of the 20th century's decolonization struggles, but he keeps the focus on individual experiences gleaned from interviews with participants, bringing to life their youthful enthusiasm ("I was fourteen. I left with friends. That way I was able to get away from my mean stepmother too!")and trauma ("They shot six times. In his right foot, his left foot, his right knee, his left knee, the right side of his chest, the left side of his chest"). The result is a vivid recreation of a watershed event in world history.