Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World

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 [my cousin] 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. (Apr.)