Indonesia Books

I would strongly recommend this book as required reading for anyone seeking to understand political Islam in Indonesia with all its nuances.

The book clearly gives insight knowledge of how Indonesian government and non-governmental institutions respond to rapid economic growth and societal demands.

A useful part of the book provides information about President Wahid's policies when he ran the Revival of Religious Scholars Organization; the book describes its history, structures, views, and responses to the political, economic and social changes that have been caused by the New Order's program. These components give us some predictions and expectations of what policies that this new and first Indonesian democratic government will implement in the coming years, in regards to their economic policy towars international communities, such as IMF, the World Bank, and foreign investors.

The transition referred to in the title concerns the end of Suharto's dictatorship and the setting up of a democracy. The text has contributions from several analysts, who speculate about Indonesia's prospects. Very difficult because of the myriad groups within Indonesia. Muslim fundamentalists who loathe any secular leanings in others. Acehnese separatists, some of who advocate outright independence. Ethnic Chinese, concentrated in the business sector. Secular Muslims, who perhaps form the largest group within Java. Plus a military that now defers to a civilian government, but which is unlikely to stand idly by if regions try to independence.

One chapter talks about the Indonesian parliament and its various factions. Not the least of which are the seats controlled by the military. The chapter also explains the extensive embedding of the military within various government levels, right down to the kampongs (villages).

Another chapter on the economy documents the pervasive corruption of the Suharto era. When his immediate family had their fingers in most major development projects. Since then, there has been definite progress in cleaning up the economy. Though few of Suharto's kin or cronies were ever indicted.

It is by no means clear from the book whether Indonesian democracy can prevail, given the mighty stresses on a huge, diverse and scattered population. Certainly, the recent coup by the Thai military a few days ago might be seen by the Indonesian military as encouragement to do likewise, were they ever to perceive Indonesia descending into chaos.

This book is intended to present a stocktaking of what has become a fast-growing field of study. But also, the goal of this book is an attempt to provide at least tentative answer to what is surely the main question any economic historian of Indonesia would ask: why at the close pf the twentieth century is the country still relatively poor and economically underdeveloped?

To answer the above question, Booth have dedicated the entire Chapter 3: Living Standards and the Distribution of Income in an attempt to explain poverty in Indonesia. Her main assertion is that though she finds that output has growth quite substantially during the Dutch colonization, the impact on welfare or on distribution of income is - at best - dismal.

Booth also mentions that many nineteenth-century writings on Indonesia were inevitably `Java-centric' though many scholars writing in the latter part of the twentieth century have tried to correct the balance.

It seems that the colonial government has made a centralized `Java-centric' policy such that Java became the capital of Indonesia, even though outer region might have had more advantages and chances to develop only if the colonial government had given the same attention that they have gave to Java. The pattern of `Java-centric' policy seems to be inherited by the central government after independence (especially during Suharto ruling), which currently has received many opposition from outer-region (especially from resource-rich outer regions) that have felt to be marginalized and left-out from the development process for many years.

The central argument of this book , then, is that a much better understanding of Indonesia's economic past is essential for formulating policies for future changes. Booth argues that Dutch colonial policies between 1815 and 1942 placed the Indonesian economy on a trajectory from which it has only partially departed.

The "approaches" used to develop the arguments

Booth follows the conventional economics classical argument in explaining Indonesian economy, by highlighting the importance of manufacturing or industrial sector (the structural change from agriculture to industry) and investment as the engine of growth, and also by highlighting the importance of foreign trade and entrepreneurs.

I have the impression that Booth, in writing this book, views herself more as an economist rather than a historian. In the book, Booth also viewed that what was needed to understand the economic history phenomenon was a new hybrid breed of scholar who was comfortable with both historical research and economic theory. (Tan, 1965:401)

The `economics' approach is apparent by the vast amount of numbers, tables and some technical economics terms that she sometimes used, such as `elasticities of government revenues' and ICOR (Incremental Capital Output Ratio). In short, the book is filled with historical data which mostly are coming from the 15 series of CEI (Changing Economy in Indonesia) published in the The Hague and Amsterdam, 1975-1994.

The effectiveness and the limitations

The main message of the book, that history do matters and history tend to repeat itself, surely has been based with strong foundations and arguments. The quantitative data used is very comprehensive, and the economic analysis is sound and based on a vast number of literatures.

Indeed, many previous Dutch colonial policies, like the policy to promote Chinese middlemen and the exploitation of indigenous producers, has been continued even after independence. As Booth (1998) stated "the real problem was not that indigenous Indonesians were prevented by an inherent lack of commercial ability from participating in the market economy. Rather, it was that large and powerful conglomerates were allowed to subvert market forces to the detriment of smaller producers." (pp.290-291. History, according to Booth, cast a long shadow over the present, in economic matters as much as in other aspect of human affairs.

Booth has also criticized the `piecemeal' approach to the study of economic change in Indonesia, than she said to be misleading, to have caused policy makers in general to be reluctant to learn from past experience. This point I think is very important for future policy-making process.

This book surely has its plus in its time-series data and analysis, especially from the colonial periods. The economics analysis also is very sound and comprehensive, and has based itself firmly with the data available.

The main problem in doing macroeconomic analysis is when we have the lack of aggregate data. When economists only have limited data, in terms of time-span and details, usually they would be reluctant to make any firm analysis and conclusions. This book surely complements the lack of economic aggregate data during colonial period, enabling the author to make firm economic analysis and conclusions.

This book also highlights the difference in economic history compared with conventional history. If history, from my point of view, would try to make conclusions from scattered or pieces of evidence, Booth tends to be reluctant in doing that. She prefers an aggregate or macro data in doing analysis or making conclusions. Booth has offered an alternative view of interpreting history, which of course it is what I think history is made of - from novelty and interpretations.

For example Booth has highlighted the difficulties in obtaining firm data source in assessing the level of welfare or inequalities in Indonesian society since the data that is available in the micro level is sadly lacking. As such, Booth prefers to view the increase in tax revenue and the numbers of pilgrims going to Mecca during colonial period as an indication that the degree of inequality has increased. Whereas, Pierre van der Eng, a prominent economic historian from ANU, has used the same numbers to point out the increasing level of output growth, rather than the increase in inequality.

Some controversy, however, I think remains. Booth mention that the motive of Dutch occupation are mixed and often more strategic than economic. She added on by saying that economic justifications were never cited in the official document. This statement, from my subjective point of view, is controversial. I think judging the (colonial) government intention, by basing from the official document from the Dutch, would yield misleading result. We could not judge intention only based on the official document. Even in the Indonesian Government after independence, the official document of planning is filled with benevolent and noble goals, like providing education and welfare, eliminate poverty, providing basic services to the poor, etc. But the fact that it is written in the official planning document does not necessarily mean that it is actually implemented, nor does that guarantee that the government `really' have a true political intention to implement it when drafting the document.

In addition, in the first paragraph of the conclusions, Booth stressed that the study of the economic history of Indonesia since 1800 is a study of missed opportunities. Both then continue with a strong statement "A country colonized by one of the most prosperous and enlightened states in Europe should surely have developed, in step with the metropolitan power, through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, into a modern industrial nation, and into a stable constitutional democracy". (p.327)

It is as if as, looking from the above statement, Booth has written a subjective interpretation or belief that the Dutch colonization has all the well-being and noble intention when they colonize Indonesia only from the official papers of the Colonial government.

In explaining the poor performance of growth, Booth often ignores the impact of war and instability during the Dutch occupation. She did mention about Aceh war and how it has drag the fiscal resources of the Dutch Government. But specific details of other domestic wars during Dutch colonization are hardly ever been mentioned and recognized. The instability and the military costs, not to mention the ruins of public infrastructure because of these domestic wars or rebellion would surely drag some resources out of the economy.

I think the reason for the above analysis is that the literatures are mainly published in English, after being translated from the Netherlands. It then would ignores the study of Indonesian (economic) history written in Indonesian language. As such, Booth might get into the risk of writing history based on the elite perspective, rather than the people.

The concept of path dependence, that the past policy errors is being inherited from the past into the present, would be difficult to use in a long time span of 170 years, the same question being posed by van der Eng (2000). In short, if history does matters, which history is relevant then?

I felt that after reading the book, I got the impression that Booth is trying to point out that based on history government and governance matters a lot to the performance of the economy and welfare of the people at large. Colonial government policy, later on followed by indigenous government, has made Java as the central/locus point of Indonesia. Government has made conscious policy effort to marginalize the role of indigenous people in business leading to the domination of Chinese in business. All of these government policies has made a long-term impact on the path of economic growth and welfare of Indonesia.

As such it might be important to assess whether the government really has viable policy alternative or is there really no choice at all besides doing what the government did in its policy formulation in the past?

Though the main thesis of the book is that government matters and government could do a lot to change the economy, no analysis is being made on the government from the political framework. The major shortcomings of the economics analysis on East Asia during the 1997 economic crisis is the lack of analysis on "Government" as an institution. As such the framework of political-economy, especially in analyzing the behavior of the government, might be proven to be very useful.

So, if Booth viewed that what was needed to understand the economic history phenomenon was a new hybrid breed of scholar who was comfortable with both historical research and economic theory, I would add one more type of hybrid breed of scholar, one who was comfortable with history and political-economy.

This book goes through difficult points of Bahasa Indonesia grammer, with many examples, and contextualises all the points which can otherwise be difficult to understand. This will be a big advance in your Bahasa if, like me, you have a hazy understanding of affixes, different verb forms and their uses and the use of and derivatives from root words, etc. The author makes these points plain through examples that show them working in the language, the way you would want to do yourself. And you will, if you can master this easy to read book.

This is one of those rare Indonesian cookbooks that lists authentic ingredients for most part.

There are, however, ingredients listed not unique to Indonesia cooking. For example flat leaf parsley as garnish. I think Sri should also provide the garnish that the parley substitutes for, in this case.

The book is a good introduction to the different building types you can visit in Bali. The photos and accompanying illustrations are helpful. The text is basic and gives reasonable summaries of the buildings. The downside is the tendancy for the authors to repeat topics in the sidebars included in each section. While consistent, it does become a bit redundant. I'd also like to have better access to definitions of the balinese terms used throughout the text. They're good to know, but become cumbersome afte a while. The bibliography will be helpful to those looking for additional information on any of the chapters.

This book gives a great flavour of Java, by someone who has clearly spent a lot of time there. It's a true story, but reads like a novel: larger-than-life characters, bizarre plot twists, an exotic location, and a murder mystery. Set in Indonesia during 1996-1997, the country is just experiencing the first rumblings of political discontent. A journalist, Udin, is killed after writing stories critical of a local politician. The subsequent investigation turns into a ham-fisted cover-up, complete with a dim-witted fall guy threatened into confessing a ficticious crime of passion, but Udin's colleagues and a band of ambitious lawyers expose the plot.

The author carefully sets the scene, explaining the background to the action as he goes along. The journalistic digressions - on Javanese belief in magic, on Suharto's family dealings, on the static and corrupt nature of Indonesian "electoral" politics - are among the most interesting elements here. The bits on Indonesian police procedures, and the warped legal system are also great.

The book is most successful in explaining how an authoritarian regime like Indonesia's actually works in practice - how the benefits of power are shared out, who loses out, and how ordinary people are forced to compromise. In the Udin case, in the end, a lot of people refused to compromise. A year later - after the 1998 riots - Suharto was gone.

A remarkable story, and a cracking read.

This book is basically a photo-oriented account of the author's trips to the Dani, Yali, Asmat and Momina peoples.
The photos are quite nice, but the information is quite limited and dated.

This is a classic work on Islam from an anthropological perspective written by a great anthropologist. Essentially it works because it has a gimick--being that it focuses on Islam in two cultures that are vastly different from one another. Indonesia and Morroco are at oppossite pole of the 'Islamic World' and the practice of Islam in each respective country are even farther apart, in the traditional sense. Geertz shows that while these two cultural manifestations of Islam may seem infinitely divergent from one another, they are nonetheless connected and complimentary. While this book now shows its age and has its weaknesses, it's short and contains many insights that make it an enjoyable read. It makes for a good partner to engage within scholarly dialogue while at the same is and equally good partner for casual reading for those with just a general interest in Islam as a cultural phenomenon.