Indonesian American Books

This book is for anyone who already enjoys exotic food and those who would like to try exotic food in the comfort of their kitchen. It is easy to follow the recipes and the food is exquisite. The thing I like about the book is that it would appeal to a diverse audience because it has Caribbean, South American, European and Asian flavor. I highly recommend this book. A must buy for expert and novice cooks.

A satisfied customer

I saw this book and thought it was very appealing from the outside. I purchased it and saw interesting easy to make recipes, I gave one a try and was taken back by the taste-different. I made it again and shared it with friends and family.
I have since made three of the recipes and love them!!
The title is correct very different and great for holidays and everyday cooking.

Give it a try and enjoy!!!

Don't get fooled by the boring cover: Indonesian Education is an enjoyable account of how history can create its own barriers to progress. To be exact, it tells a story of how school-based actors respond to central government's policy to decentralize education that began in early 1990s in Indonesia.

Chris Bjork, however, uses this account to enlighten his readers of a broader story -- a puzzle, in fact -- he found during his preliminary visits, to wit, how Indonesian teachers saw their professional responsibility not, primarily, to provide instructions but instead as an executor of central government policy.

Taking history as his starting point, he argues, compellingly, that given the New Order government's obsession with nation-building, teachers are "set up" to become extensions of the state apparatus. Hence, in other words, teachers become 'teacher-bureaucrats' -- emphasis often on the latter.

Bjork then goes on to show how this came in conflict with the government's own plan to decentralize education as a way to improve quality. While decentralization required teachers to take initiative, the institutional culture set up by the New Order adamantly refused to allow teacher initiative and innovation back into schools.

The book distills Bjork's 13-month study in the late 1990s. Despite the fact that it has that typical dissertation-like structure, it is very well written, interspersed with lots of narratives that are both interesting and engrossing. It's fun to read. Clearly, a must-read for people interested in the development of education policy in developing countries.

ACCENT ENGLISH-A PERSONALIZED ACCENT REDUCTION PROGRAM It is a unique self-teaching program for professional and social communcations which is important for those who wish to move upward in their careers. Each Accent English program is designed to meet the needs of the speaker of a specific language. In that way a non-native American English speaker concentrates on those sounds which generally cause him or her problems. Improve business communication, enhance comunication flow, solve English pronunciation problems based on your native language. It is the only ACCENT REDUCTION program that works with YOU on those pronunciation problems YOU face on a daily basis. It gives YOU the assistance of a COSTLY speech specialist at a fraction of the cost. The 4-90 minute tapes contain 24 selected practice lessons that assist you to produce sounds usually mispronounced when the speaker of your native language speaks American English. Rhythm, tempo, stress and intonation are also addressed by practice and example.

If someone mentions `Bali' one of the first images that will come into your mind will probably be rice terraces. The first Austronesian colonists introduced rice to the coastal regions of Bali several thousand years ago, but it was by no means certain that rice cultivation would expand into the rugged interior of the island. Ancient Balinese farmers had to find ways to move massive amounts of water through kilometres of solid rock. Water is necessary for wet rice agriculture. They had to perfect a new engineering system constructing canals, tunnels and aqueducts and they did.

Having done that they had to devise a workable and fair scheme for sharing the water. Those farmers downstream are at the mercy of the farmers upstream as they control the water flow. It was done through the subak irrigation societies, which are first mentioned in the 11th century, and the network of water temples. The subaks are very democratic societies and everyone who owns a rice paddy must belong to one. I do. The Dutch and their successors, the Indonesian government, did not understand the power of the water temples. It was not until well into the 1980s that the role of the water temples in setting cropping patterns and controlling irrigation was appreciated, thanks largely to the American anthropologist Stephen Lansing. The Green Revolution, which had its benefits, caused chaos in Bali as the water temples were ignored totally. Pests got out of control.

In this book Stephen Lansing describes his field research over a number of years. He and his team interviewed and videotaped many farmers in the subak organisations in the area around Pujung, which is not far from Ubud, where I live, and describes various conflicts that arose. He tested the decisions made using computer simulations and found that the decisions made were the best that could be made in the circumstances. He was intrigued, however, about the human element. After all it is very tempting for greedy farmers upsteam to keep more water for themselves and grow more rice. What is to prevent them doing that? He discovered that if they did it would result in more pests so it would not be in their interests to do so.

Stephen Lansing has a vast knowledge of Bali and has written many papers and other books about Balinese life. He writes in the clearest language and goes off on various tangents from time to time - always fascinating subjects such as human sacrifices, rat cremations, witchcraft and how they abolished caste in Pujung.

The supreme water temple is Ulun Danu Batur on the rim of Mount Batur. This is the second most important temple in Bali where Dewi Danu, the Goddess of the Lake resides. She refused to accept marriage and subordination to her brother and founded her own temple where she could be independent. It is a unique temple in many respects. Stephen Lansing has spend a considerable time researching it and writes an intriguing chapter describing the forty-five deities of the temple, the trance mediums, who are ideally opposite-sex twins, the twenty-four male priests, half of whom are regarded as female, and the twenty village Elders, the four most senior of which may go through a `marriage' ceremony to each other, but have not done so for the past century.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a good understanding of matters that are not generally apparent to the ordinary person, whether they are Balinese or just visiting Bali for a short time.

Murni
Ubud, Bali

This is a fascinating book on studying the art of an Indonesian group and how it relates to politics. The author also shares a lot about her fieldwork, how she got the information she did and what daily life was like when she was doing her research there. A must-read for anyone who ever wondered what it would be like to be an anthropologist studying another group!

first off, I must say that the topic itself is not that bad, the author tries to demonstrate how the art of the Toraja people of Indonesians has been politicized (even though i disagree with her methods, she really brings too much personal emotion into her research). but i must say that the book seems to just keep on going on about something that could have been written about in half the length. she reuses the same concepts and experiences to create new chapters.....pretty disappointed

Kathleen Adams' finely written book especially proves the value of an anthropologist studying with and knowing a group of people over decades--thus creating a rich cultural epic. This is a complex yet very readable account of the mountain dwelling Sa'dan Toraja of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The author illuminates histories (from a number of views), the inevitable dynamism of art forms, and honest ethnographic experiences. She brings to life the people in her book within intricate stories reflecting the pressures of history-- brilliantly linking art and life through the changes of time. This is an anthropology of art and of an Indonesian people that deeply resonates today. Rich in description and humanity, meticulous in references, theoretically sophisticated, and many-layered in meanings, the book is also refreshingly lively and engaging in writing style. A welcome break from overly jargonistic books that seem to be written for ten people to read. Anyone interested in learning of other cultures, Indonesia, the people of Toraja, artistic processes, the workings of history, good story-telling, and impressive cultural anthropology will enjoy this book. Really a gem.

This is a thoughtful academic book that is fascinating to read. Seldom do scholars treat their subject with such a personal touch and still attain a high academic level. Adams shows clearly and in a highly readable fashion how the Toraja are able to use their art as a vehicle for political expression. Adams includes lot of nuanced insight in her pages, showing the intricate ways in which these highland people have adapted and preserved their culture despite the constant intrusions of the outside world. An outstanding book in every way.

Art as Politics is a thought provoking and very readable account of how tourism, world religions, and Indonesian politics have changed the lives and culture of the Toraja. (The Toraja people are a minority ethnic group on the island of Sulawesi.) What first attracted my attention was the striking carved portrait on the cover. The artistic skill of the Toraja artisans is truly noteworthy which gives this book a particular importance in understanding how culture shapes art. Adams describes in warm and vivid detail the changes the Toraja have faced over the past two decades and how this has affected their artistic productions as well as their attitudes about their art. In addition, the production quality of the color photos and other illustrations is praiseworthy. One thing that modern Western culture has obscured about art is the importance of social-cultural constraints and rewards. In the West we follow along with Romantic notions of Art as the product of the isolated genius. However, art generally was and probably still is mostly produced to serve social and religious purposes. Adams describes the complexities of the Toraja attitudes about their art and culture in the sometimes traumatic interplay of tradition and modern society that Indonesia has experienced since the 70s. While interested in the art of other cultures, I have only taken one college anthropology course, yet I had no difficulty following the points expressed. The people in this book really come alive and the author has a very readable and involving manner of expression. Armchair travelers, people interested in other cultures with strong religious traditions, and people interested in ethnic arts will love this book.

I am a student of African and Indonesian spiritual practices. This book, along with Mr. Barley's others, is a refreshing departure from long-winded, ivory-tower lectures. Funny and informative.

Nigel Barley is an English antropologist who makes a visit to Torajaland in Sulawesi, Indonesia. He says in his foreword that he want to tell the stories that more traditional antropological books don't tell. The result is sometimes funny but otherwise not very remarkable.

Obviously, there is more to anthropology than simply going to some faraway land and relating tales about one's experiences there. But there's nothing wrong with doing just that, as Nigel Barley does in this book. He starts right out, in the first sentence, by saying that "Anthropology is not a hazardous sport." Anyway, he goes off to Indonesia (actually, to Torajaland, on the island of Celebes) to live, um, non-hazardously.

An incident typical of the author's misadventures comes when some of the people he's visiting decide they need to consecrate a new rice barn with blood. They plan to sacrifice a pig to do this. But when they ask him to pass them a machete, he cuts his fingers badly on it. So badly that his blood suffices; they don't need to sacrifice a pig after all.

I enjoyed this book, and I recommend it.

The Indonesian Confrontation against Malaysia represents a challenging case study for scholars, historians and political scientists because it takes place at a time when the conduct of international relations was influenced by ideas and interests which may seem alien today. It is hard, for instance, to separate Sukarno's genuine fears of neocolonial encirclement from his desire to exaggerate external threats in order to justify his "Crush Malaysia" campaign, and to separate the internal dynamics of a regional conflict from the broader antagonisms of the Cold War. This book fills in an important gap in the literature by chronicling the conflict from the standpoint of the Western countries, who are the "Nekolim" so feared by Sukarno. It offers important historical lessons about the potential and limits of overlapping multilateral security arrangements (Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement, ANZUS agreements, Commonwealth, SEATO etc) in guaranteeing peace and security. The extensive network of alliances could act as a deterrent to aggressors, yet once deterrence fails (which it has and very well might again), the next development is always one of two evils: conflicts become escalated and involve many players, or someone must renege on a security obligation. The U.S., for instance, had distanced itself from its SEATO and ANZUS commitments for fear of being embroiled in the Konfrontasi crisis. This book describes diplomatic developments between the Western countries in useful detail. J.A.C. Mackie's "Konfrontasi" is still the best book on the subject from the M'sian and Indonesian angle. Djiwandono's "Konfrontasi Revisited" offers a view from the other side of the fence i.e. relations between Indonesia and the Soviet Union (as well as China).

This book was an eye-opener for me; a whole new perspective on biodiversity conservation. Many times, books such as this don't really apply to the rest of the world, but the ideas in here are very applicable everywhere. I found the book moving and very thought provoking, especially the last three chapters.

Unfortunately, she obscures many of her ideas in hard-to-follow political ecology rhetoric. Her first chapter is rough to get through for a lay person, and she beats you over the head with her manifesto. But once you get past that first chapter, the book picks up and finishes off with a fantastic conclusion that will change the way you think about biodiversity.

While this book must be a well-written professional work on its topic, I found most of this book a bit too dry and scholarly to be of interest to the average reader like myself.
Still, it does contain otherwise hard to find information on the modern society of the Tanimbar Islands (especially of the Fordatan ethnic group) of Southeast Maluku.

This book is a useful introduction to the history of US-Indonesian relations. The prospective reader is cautioned, however, that the author has a bias in favor of the Indonesians, who apparently can do little wrong and are constantly misunderstood. It's a classic case of a former US diplomat's having "gone native."