KITLV Press Research Articles

Tales of Southeast Asia's Jazz Age: Filipinos, Indonesians and Popular Culture, 1920–1936 by Peter Keppy

Reviewed by: Tales of Southeast Asia's Jazz Age: Filipinos, Indonesians and Popular Culture, 1920–1936 by Peter Keppy Raul Casantusan Navarro Peter Keppy Tales of Southeast Asia's Jazz Age: Filipinos, Indonesians and Popular Culture, 1920–1936 Singapore: NUS Press, 2019. 269 pages. Peter Keppy has written extensively on Indonesia since the 1990s. His Politics of Redress: War Damage and Restitution in Indonesia and the Philippines, 1940–1957 (KITLV Press, 2010) was his first major work, in which he tackled postwar issues in both countries. The present work is the author's second, in which he fuses together the intersections of politico-historical events and popular music in the two Southeast Asian nations. Viewed against the political backdrop of colonization characterized by two contrasting modes of subjugation—Indonesia under the repressive Dutch government and the Philippines under the "benevolent assimilation" of the American insular government—both countries were gifted with artists who touched their respective nation's popular imagination. Keppy chose Luis Borromeo, aka Borromeo Lou, who was among the first proponents of jazz music in the Philippines, to initiate his discussion on popular culture in the Philippines, and he picked the multitalented Ms. Riboet, actress, dancer, singer, and recording artist, as an appropriate representative of both low- and high-brow Indonesian culture. [End Page 123] The author uses three key concepts to weave his data to produce the present work. Two of the concepts, "pop cosmopolitanism" and "participatory culture," are derived from media scholar Henry Jenkins, and the last one, "popular modernism," is a take on anthropologist Joel Kahn's cultural theory. To make a small twist to Jenkins's theory, Keppy uses the term "participatory pop" instead of "participatory culture." The inclusive term "participatory culture" could have sufficed to navigate seamlessly through both mass and elite cultures discussed in the book because, after all, the author does not offer any new meaning for the phrase "participatory pop." Besides, the words "participatory" and "popular" basically connote the same thing. Any cultural artifact could not have been created or formed without the participation or popular support of its audience as both consumer and producer. On the one hand, Keppy highlights specific groups of Filipinos (as the following chapter titles attest: "Cabaret Girls and Legislators" and "Jassistas, Balagtansistas [sic], Zarzuelistas") to suggest a varied cultural scenario that Borromeo negotiated as a musician. On the other hand, aside from being a singer, Ms. Riboet was introduced by the author as a cultural broker, a bridge between arts and artists and the masses. These interconnections among artists, producers, and consumers suggest a broad participation of people in the creation of popular culture. The book has ten chapters, the first of which introduces both Borromeo and Riboet as leitmotif in discussing popular culture in their respective countries. The next five chapters narrate stories of Borromeo's work relationships with other Filipino artists, his active theater life, and the groups he founded or performed with. The last four chapters are devoted to a close reading of Riboet's career and the development of politics and popular theater in Indonesia; the genres "popular theater" and political theater were fortes of the theater groups Komedie Stamboel and Dardanella at the height of their popularity. Although Keppy utilizes them as handles for discussion, Borromeo and Riboet are not given equal treatment. The obvious wealth of data on Indonesia and Riboet (or perhaps the number of years devoted by the author to the study of Indonesia) has yielded a richly woven story about popular theater in Batavia and other centers of cultural activity in the Dutch East Indies. There is also the impression that the author is much more knowledgeable about this colony than the Philippines, as inaccuracies about the latter are found in the text. A few examples of these slips are as [End Page 124] follows: "as a consequence of impending Philippine Independence in 1935" (132) (the Philippines was granted its independence by the US in 1946); and "In the early 1930s, Bocobo would lead a research project aimed at documenting native music and dances" (46) (Bocobo was president of the University of the Philippines [UP] when he created the "UP Committee on Folk Songs and...

Destiny: The Life of Prince Diponegoro of Yogyakarta, 1785–1855 by Peter Carey (review)

Reviewed by: Destiny: The Life of Prince Diponegoro of Yogyakarta, 1785–1855 by Peter Carey Anton O. Zakharov Destiny: The Life of Prince Diponegoro of Yogyakarta, 1785–1855 Peter Carey Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. xlix, 381 pp., illus. US $81.95. ISBN 978-3-0343-0926-4 Prince Diponegoro is an Indonesian national hero who led a major uprising against the Dutch colonial regime, or the Java War, in 1825–30 and who wrote a valuable autobiography Babad Dipanagara. His life and the Java War itself have been subjects of numerous stories, research and ever paintings. Peter Carey, who published Diponegoro’s biography The Power of Prophecy: Prince Dipanagara and the End of an Old Order in Java, 1785–1855 in 2007 (Leiden: KITLV Press) offers an updated reconstruction of his life. The new book title speaks for itself: Diponegoro’s life is treated as determined by his specific environments that considerably and even drastically changed over [End Page 120] time, and their connections with changing world patterns as well as inner Javanese developments. Carey shows that Diponegoro became the ‘crucial figure’ of the Java War (p. 327) due to historical coincidence. Despite the fact that the Java War was decisively the summit of Diponegoro’s fate—the time when he enjoyed greatest impact on the Dutch and Javanese—Carey places his life in a much broader historical context covering economic, social, political, and cultural changes in Europe that were influenced by the Double Revolution and in turn had influenced the changes in Southeast Asia and particularly in Java. Carey divides his book into four well-balanced parts of three chapters each: ‘Youth and Upbringing, 1785–1808’, ‘The Beginning of the Ruin of the Land of Java, 1808–1812’, ‘Golden Years, Iron Years, 1812–1825’, and ‘War and Exile, 1825–1855’. The monograph also contains a glossary of Javanese terms and an index. The first chapter, ‘Diponegoro’s Youth and Upbringing, 1785–1803’, shows that the prince was greatly influenced by his great-grandmother, Ratu Ageng Tegalrejo, who was his guardian and to whom he was obliged for his early and deep acquaintance with the needs of Javanese peasantry, for his great devotion to Muslim beliefs and Javanese practices, for his knowledge of the ideas and representatives of the Javanese Muslim (santri) communities in south-central Java. Such upbringing was unusual for the Yogyakarta princes and may be treated as a factor of Diponegoro’s unique destiny. The death of Ratu Ageng in 1803 made Diponegoro the lord of her estate, Tegalrejo, and opened a new page in his life. The second chapter, ‘Young Manhood: Marriage, Education and Links with the Religious (santri) Community, 1803–1805’, stresses that, despite his impressive knowledge of Javanese and Muslim literary works, Diponegoro was in fact an ‘autodidact’ (p. 31). The prince ‘[w]as more a typical Javanese mystic than an orthodox Muslim reformer’ who concentrated more on ‘the use of dhikr (short prayers for the glorification of Allah endlessly repeated in ritual order and on various forms of meditation’ (pp. 33–4). Carey also emphasizes that Diponegoro was ‘flawed and all too human’, a fact which may be easily ignored due to on-going national myth-making in Indonesia (p. 42). The third chapter, ‘Pilgrimage to the South Coast, circa 1805’, sheds a light on Diponegoro’s wanderings and spiritual visions. From them he learned that he ‘would become king’ (p. 51), that ‘the ruin of the Land of Java’ would begin soon, and that he should help his father and reject the title of Crown prince. Carey takes Diponegoro’s own stories about these prophecies, be they correct or imaginary, as the indispensable markers of his destiny. Diponegoro also strongly identified himself with the Javanese puppet theatre (wayang) hero Arjuna, a famous ascetic warrior. The fourth chapter, ‘The Beginning of Ruin: Daendels’ “New Order” and the Central Javanese Courts, 1808’ touches upon Marshal Daendels’ reforms in Java. Daendels ordered new etiquette and ceremonial to the Yogyakarta court that had [End Page 121] broken the Yogyanese perception of Java as divided between the Dutch in west Java with Batavia and the Sultan of Yogyakarta in south-central and eastern Java. From then on...

At the Edges of States: Dynamics of State Formation in the Indonesian Borderlands. By Eilenberg Michael. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2012. xvi, 355 pp. €29.90 (paper). - Anarchic Solidarity: Autonomy, Equality, and Fellowship in Southeast Asia. Edited by Thomas Gibson and Kenneth Sillander. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 2011. ix, 310 pp. $38.00 (cloth); $27.00 (paper).

At the Edges of States: Dynamics of State Formation in the Indonesian Borderlands. By Eilenberg Michael. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2012. xvi, 355 pp. €29.90 (paper). - Anarchic Solidarity: Autonomy, Equality, and Fellowship in Southeast Asia. Edited by Thomas Gibson and Kenneth Sillander. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 2011. ix, 310 pp. $38.00 (cloth); $27.00 (paper).

Kartosuwiryo dan NII: Kajian Ulang

Formichi, Kiara, Islam in The Making of The Nation: Kartosuwiryo and Political Islam in 20th Century Indonesia. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 282, Leiden: KITLV Press, 2012, xvii, 244 pp. (map), USD 49.00, paper, ISBN 978-90-6718-386-4Chiara Formichi’s book, Islam and the Making of the Nation: Kartosuwiryo and Political Islam in 20th Century Indonesia (2012), is the most recent work on Kartosuwiryo and Negara Islam Indonesia (NII). Formichi perceives Kartosuwiryo and NII as Islamic political movement while discussing the place of Islam and Indonesian Muslims in the nation-state building. She argues that Kartosuwiryo movement and NII is the true expression of political Islam which aims at establishing ‘a federal Islamic state of Indonesia’ by collapsing the Indonesian state with Pancasila as its philosophical foundation. In her opinion, the roots of NII’s political Islam could be traced to the works and political activism of Kartosuwiryo in Sarekat Islam (SI), the first Islamic national movement in Indonesia, established in 1911. However, Formichi does not explain why the ideas, movement, struggle as well as the trial of establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia failed as confirmed by the experience of Kartosuwiryo and NII.DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v21i1.883

R. Michael Feener, Patrick Daly, and Anthony Reid, eds. Mapping the Acehnese Past . Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011, xvi+292p.

Mapping Acehnese Past R. MICHAEL FEENER, PATRICK DALY, and ANTHONY REID, eds. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011, xvi+292p.One of underlying themes in this edited volume on Aceh is that fresh look at . . . archives suggests that new histories can be created (J. G. Taylor, p. 234), so each of articles presents a new history, a new production of knowledge, a new way of representing and looking at Aceh using old archival, historical sources that have previously already been written about from other angles. These include ancient history archaeological findings and investigations of ceramics and Muslim tombstones; Ottoman Empire's archives on friendship and collaboration between Acehnese sultans and Ottoman Empire; close readings from a fresh perspective of traditional Malay-Acehnese hikayat and indigenous oral traditions on prang sabil; art of royal letter writing by three Acehnese sultans from different periods; a very brief look at Portuguese archives; close reading and analyses of Dutch letters, VOC correspondence, notes, and gift exchanges with Acehnese sultans and orang kaya, and KITLV photographs. This book highlights cosmopolitanism and richness of Aceh's connections to outside world and is, according to editors, a book about Aceh as seen from perspectives. But there is an inconsistency: if it is a book by outsiders about outsider's perspectives on Aceh, then where does one place two articles by only two Acehnese in book, Teuku Iskandar and Amirul Hadi? Are they Acehnese outsiders?The most informative (with a fresh perspective), elegantly written, and profoundly critical papers in this book are those by Teuku Iskandar (Aceh as a crucible of Muslim-Malay literature), Ismail Hakki Goksoy (Ottoman-Aceh relations as documented in Turkish sources), Annabel Teh Gallop (Gold, silver and lapis lazuli: Royal letters from Aceh in seventeenth century), Ismail Hakki Kadi, A. C. S. Peacock and Annabel Teh Gallop (on Writing history: The Acehnese embassy to Istanbul, 1849-1852), and Jean Gelman Taylor (Aceh histories in KITLV images archive). Here is one example of something hilarious:The grand vizier's minutes suggest limitations of Ottoman bureaucracy's intelligence about political and administrative structure of Southeast Asia. He wrote that the place called Java is a sort of province of great island of implying that Ottomans did really consider Java as a province of Sumatra, as Acehnese mission claimed. (Kadi, Peacock and Gallop, p. 176)Annabel Teh Gallop examines an example of how artistically sophisticated and intellectually subtle Acehnese were in art of rhetoric:As with so many royal Malay epistles, this is a carefully crafted and extremely diplomatic letter, deploying both bombast and subtlety as judged appropriate to convey what is essentially a negative message. (Gallop, p. 116, describing content of Sultan Iskandar Thani's [r. 1636-1641] letter to Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange [1584-1647])Jean Taylor provides a fascinating unpacking of problem of power and inequality in field of history and historiography, in particular in use of photographs as tools of history:Consideration of what actually was photographed obliges us to recognize that photography is not an objective record of peoples, times and places. Photographs are subjected to manipulation through selection, like any other set of documents. They are staged records and products of fleeting relationships between photographed and photographer . . . . Specialists in colonial photography draw attention to social distance between viewer and viewed, and to process of othering. (J.G. Taylor, p. 201)These articles are riveting and fascinating to read, and a treasure trove of new insights and new knowledge into old sources that have already been interpreted by dozens of other interpreters. …

From Lanka Eastwards: The Ramayana in the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia (review)

Reviewed by: From Lanka Eastwards: The Ramayana in the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia M. Rajantheran From Lanka Eastwards: The Ramayana in the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia. By Andrea Acri, Helen Creese and Arlo Griffiths (EDS), Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011 259 pp. ISBN 978-9067-18-384-0 This book consists of a selection of the articles presented at a workshop in 2009. The ten articles are divided into two main categories, Part I (six articles): Old Javanese Kakawin and The Kakawin Ramayana and Part II (four articles): The Ramayana at Candi Prambanan and Candi Panataran. It is evident that the book aims to create an informed historical understanding through a variety of cultural, artistic and religious discourses on contemporary Indonesia. The transculturally intellectual contribution which has shaped the cultural heritage of Indonesia over time is presented in these articles by writers who are knowledgeable in their respective fields of study. Since ancient times almost all cultures in South and Southeast Asia have been influenced by Indian culture, especially by its great literature like the Ramayana, Mahabharatha and Pancatantra. Though the Ramayana and Mahabharata traditions are still celebrated in some parts of this region, they are downplayed in other areas. Nonetheless, in most parts of Indonesia the Ramayana and Mahabharata are seen as a pride of their culture. In Bali these two works are often displayed in the form of stage performances, moral codes, religious practices and even as landmarks. The editors have rightly pointed out the existence of two main approaches—Indianizing and Indonesianizing—in the study of ancient Indonesian culture. No local scholars submitted papers for the workshop; extra efforts should have been made to obtain academic contributions from them as their absence leaves a large academic gap in the effort to present a comprehensive study of Indonesia's culture. Though the articles have been organized objectively, the study would present amore comprehensive account if it included a historical survey of the Old Javanese Kakawin and the Kakawin Ramayana. This is important for readers who are new to this field of study. According to the editors, the first two papers in Part I cover the general perspectives on Kakawin and the Kakawin Ramayana. But in reality those two articles are indeed very specific in their scope: the first article deals with stuti (hymns of praise) in Kakawins and the second deals with kavisamaya-adi from a comparative approach. Stuart Robson, in his article entitled 'Hymns in Kakawins, The Ramayana and Other Examples', shows the importance of stuti in Kakawin Ramayana and other literary examples. He observes that these hymns have been inserted mainly at critical junctures in the plots, which are indeed found in a majority of known Kakawins, including the Kakawin Ramayana. Though this article is presented in a proper academic form, the findings are not new. For example, the writer's conclusion about stuti is not new but common knowledge to Indian Studies scholars. The second article, by Wesley Michel, entitled 'Poetic Conventions as Opposed to Conventional Poetry? A Place for Kavisamaya-adi in Comparative Kavya/Kakawin Studies' is also a content analysis study focusing on epic conventions [End Page 125] (kavisamaya-adi) that is topoi, rather than on formal components such as figure of speech and prosody which have dominated past comparative studies of Kakawin or kavya. This is a specific study of the Kakawin genre from the comparative perspective of Indian kavya literature and poetology ('science of figures') called alamkara-sastra in Sanskrit. This article is well designed, written and contains good findings. Thomas Hunter, in his article entitled 'Figures of Repetition (yamaka) in the Bhattikavya, the Raguvamsa, the Siwagraha Inscriptions and the Kakawin Ramayana', follows the footsteps of C. Hooykaas, who made a similar analysis using the yamaka (figure of speech) found in alamkara-sastra. However, Thomas Hunter has demonstrated that this yamaka predominates in both the Kakawin Ramayana and the Old Javanese Siwagrha inscription of 856 AD. He further provides significant new evidence to support the hypothesis that the Kakawin is contemporary with the inscription, a hypothesis originally developed by Walker Aichele on the basis of a study of their contents. The finding of this article is beneficial to...

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Loan-Words in Indonesian and Malay. Edited by Russel Jones. pp. 360. Leiden, KITLV Press, 2007.

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A World of Water: Rain, Rivers and Seas in Southeast Asian Histories. Edited by Peter Boomgaard. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2007. viii + 368 pp. Tables, maps, figures, illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Paper $42.00

<i>A World of Water: Rain, Rivers and Seas in Southeast Asian Histories.</i> Edited by Peter Boomgaard. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2007. viii + 368 pp. Tables, maps, figures, illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Paper $42.00

Histories of the Borneo Environment: Economic, Political, and Social Dimensions of Change and Continuity. Edited by Reed L. Wadley (Leiden, KITLV Press, 2005) 322 pp. $35.00

April 01 2008 Histories of the Borneo Environment: Economic, Political, and Social Dimensions of Change and Continuity. Edited by Reed L. Wadley (Leiden, KITLV Press, 2005) 322 pp. $35.00 Tilak K. Doshi Tilak K. Doshi Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Tilak K. Doshi Online Issn: 1530-9169 Print Issn: 0022-1953 © 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.2008 The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2008) 38 (4): 648–651. https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2008.38.4.648 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Tilak K. Doshi; Histories of the Borneo Environment: Economic, Political, and Social Dimensions of Change and Continuity. Edited by Reed L. Wadley (Leiden, KITLV Press, 2005) 322 pp. $35.00. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2008; 38 (4): 648–651. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2008.38.4.648 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe Journal of Interdisciplinary History Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

IMPUNITY RESURGENT: THE POLITICS OF MILITARY ACCOUNTABILITY IN INDONESIA, 1998–2001

IMPUNITY RESURGENT: THE POLITICS OF MILITARY ACCOUNTABILITY IN INDONESIA, 1998–2001

A Lifelong Passion: P. J. Veth (1814–1895) and the Dutch East Indies. By Paul van der Velde. Translated from the Dutch by Beverley Jackson. (Monograph No 234 of the Royal Institute for Linguistics and Anthropology). pp. xvi, 355. Leiden, KITLV Press, 2006.

A Lifelong Passion: P. J. Veth (1814–1895) and the Dutch East Indies. By Paul van der Velde. Translated from the Dutch by Beverley Jackson. (Monograph No 234 of the Royal Institute for Linguistics and Anthropology). pp. xvi, 355. Leiden, KITLV Press, 2006.

Smallholders and Stockbreeders: Histories of Foodcrop and Livestock Farming in Southeast Asia. Edited by Peter Boomgaard and David Henley (Leiden, KITLV Press, 2004) 344 pp. €30

<i>Smallholders and Stockbreeders: Histories of Foodcrop and Livestock Farming in Southeast Asia</i>. Edited by Peter Boomgaard and David Henley (Leiden, KITLV Press, 2004) 344 pp. €30

Muddied Waters: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Management of Forests and Fisheries in Island Southeast Asia. Edited by Peter Boomgaard, David Henley, and Manon Osseweijer. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV Press, 2005. viii + 418 pp. Illustrations, bibliographies, indexes. Paper €35.00

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsMuddied Waters: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Management of Forests and Fisheries in Island Southeast Asia. Edited by Peter Boomgaard, David Henley, and Manon Osseweijer. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV Press, 2005. viii + 418 pp. Illustrations, bibliographies, indexes. Paper €35.00Dan TamirDan TamirUniversity of Zürich Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 12, Number 2April 2007 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 1Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/12.2.430 Views: 1Total views on this site © 2004 American Society for Environmental History and Forest History SocietyPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Between Iron Formalism and Playful Relativism: Five Recent Studies in Malay Writing

The heritage of traditional Malay literature: A historical survey of genres, writings, and literary views By VLADIMIR BRAGINSKY Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 890. Notes, Bibliography, Index.John Leyden's Malay Annals With an introductory essay by VIRGINIA MATHESON HOOKER and M. B. HOOKER Kuala Lumpur: MBRAS, 2001. Pp. 81, 361. Notes, Bibliography, Index.We are playing relatives: A survey of Malay writing By HENK MAIER Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. Pp. viii, 542. Notes, Bibliography, Index.Bidasari: Jewel of Malay Muslim culture Edited by JULIAN MILLIE Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. Pp. 310. Notes, Bibliography, Index.A merry senhor in the Malay world: Four texts of the Syair Sinyor Kosta Edited by A. TEEUW, R. DUMAS, MUHAMMAD HAJI SALLEH, R. TOL and M. J. VAN YPEREN Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. Pp. x, 467. Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Smallholders and Stockbreeders: Histories of Foodcrop and Livestock Farming in Southeast Asia. Edited by Peter Boomgard and David Henley. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV Press, 2004. vii + 344 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index. $30.00

<i>Smallholders and Stockbreeders: Histories of Foodcrop and Livestock Farming in Southeast Asia.</i> Edited by Peter Boomgard and David Henley. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV Press, 2004. vii + 344 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index. $30.00

Identity and Development: Tongan Culture, Agriculture, and the Perenniality of the Gift (review)

Reviewed by: Identity and Development: Tongan Culture, Agriculture, and the Perenniality of the Gift Mike Evans Identity and Development: Tongan Culture, Agriculture, and the Perenniality of the Gift, by Paul van der Grijp. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. ISBN 90-6718-215-X; X + 225 pages, tables, figures, maps, notes, bibliography, index. €35.00. Paul van der Grijp's Identity and Development is an important contribution to the growing literature on the incorporation of world-system institutions into Tongan culture and economy. It is a significant monograph-length treatment of cash crop production and its results over the last ten years (for squash pumpkin) totwenty years (for vanilla and bananas). To a lesser extent the book also deals with migration, aid, and remittances, the other key elements of the monetized parts of the contemporary Tongan economy. The work explicitly emphasizes the value of ethnographic and empirical work in these areas, goes some way to contributing ethnographic data to the literature, and uses a number of case studies to critically appraise the utility of a number of other works. Two major themes animate the monograph. First, van der Grijp is concerned to undermine the use and abuse of the MIRAB (Migration, Remittances, Aid, and Bureaucracy) model currently in vogue for describing Tonga and many other Pacific Island economies. The author also seeks to challenge the notions that Tongan culture is either an unchanged and unchanging product of tradition, or a simple reproduction of capitalist ideology and practice. The vehicle for accomplishing these ends is, oddly, a protracted discussion of the role of [End Page 499] the middle and entrepreneurial "classes" in relation to both economy and culture. Although van der Grijp makes a bit of a straw man of MIRAB theory, his insistence on exploring the impact of cash crop production is helpful in rounding out existing anthropological treatments of contemporary Tonga. Indeed, consistent with the intentions of the author, the strongest elements of the work are its care and attention to detailed descriptions of people working in cash crop production. Having worked on similar issues elsewhere in Tonga, I very much appreciated learning about the multiple ways in which people have attempted to produce cash crops and the stresses that they have negotiated. Van der Grijp demonstrates empirically his theoretical claim—that Tongan identity and practice emerge in a dialectical fashion, from operating within the strains of producing and marketing via capitalist structures while still embedded in noncapitalist relations ofproduction. To his credit, van der Grijp maintains a relatively even hand in his description of this dialectic, illuminating the ways that people have negotiated change without necessarily assuming the direction or overdetermining outcomes of these negotiations. These are the best aspects of the book. There are some questionable empirical statements about decreasing remittances (64), and the amount of land in cash crop production (145), but overall the data mobilized here make a lasting contribution to the literature. I also found the book's focuses on the middle and entrepreneurial classes warranted and useful in ethnographic terms, but problematic in theoretical ones. In spite of appearances to the contrary, entrepreneurs are primarily defined in cultural rather than economic terms; the analysis is thus plagued by liberal economics. Having established that entrepreneurs are not easily understood in traditional political economy (read Marxist) terms, the author goes on to argue that the middle classes are culturally and economically innovative and have used cash cropping as a vehicle for challenging entrenched elites. This point has been made a few times over the years and I am not sure we learn too much more here. Nowhere does the author deal systematically with the differing ramifications of the introduction of capitalist markets versus the use of capitalist social relations of production; in fact at times he appears to confuse the two (121, 189). This is important not so much from the point of view of how entrepreneurs are capable of innovation, as in terms of the capacity of others to resist, deflect, or modify bourgeois attempts to commodify previously noncommodified relationships. Given that the effects of a moral economy appear significant in van der Grijp's descriptions of nominally market-oriented behavior (137, 157), there is some...

The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War (review)

Reviewed by: The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War J. A. de Moor The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War. By L. de Jong. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV Press, 2002. ISBN 90-6718-203-6. Pp. 570. Euro 25.00. In the first week of March 1942, Japanese forces attacked and occupied the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. Dutch colonial power rapidly collapsed [End Page 593] under the Japanese onslaught and a three-year occupation of the Indonesian archipelago began. This occupation ushered in the end of Dutch colonialism in Asia, although after the Japanese capitulation in 1945, the Dutch briefly returned to the Archipelago to fight the Indonesian freedom movement. This was to no avail, and by the end of 1949, Indonesia had become a free and independent republic. This study deals with the effects of the Japanese occupation on the Dutch and on colonial society at large. It is a translation from the Dutch original. It forms part of the magnum opus of Dr. Louis de Jong (b. Amsterdam, 1914), probably the most famous living Dutch historian (and without doubt the most widely read). In 1955, Dr. De Jong was commissioned by the government to write a comprehensive history of the Second World War in the Netherlands and its colonies. Thirty five years later, in 1988, the author concluded what had become a gargantuan, impressive, widely admired series of books: thirteen parts published in twenty-seven volumes (15,000 pages). Part of this series are six volumes which deal with the Second World War (and its aftermath) in the Dutch colonies, mainly in Indonesia, published between 1984 and 1988. The present book contains a translation of six chapters taken from these volumes. What is the topic of these chapters? The first gives a survey of what is called "the elimination of the Netherlands." It deals with the way in which the Japanese military authorities removed the Dutch, the Dutch language and all manifestations and symbols of the Dutch presence from the public domain and started to intern Dutch civilians. The second chapter deals with the—admittedly—small-scale resistance against Japanese rule. Then follows a chapter on the economic effect of Japanse rule on Indonesian society, more in particular with respect to the so-called romusha, Indonesian indigenous labourers who were recruited by the Japanese and so horribly treated that many hundreds of thousands of them died. In all, probably two and a half million Javanese died during the Japanese occupation. Two chapters deal with the internment camps for prisoners of war (the former colonial army, 42,000 persons in all) and for the European civilian population (ca. 100,000). Finally, a chapter is devoted to the Eur-Asian population which stayed out of the camps (160,000), but had to live under constant pressure and increasing poverty during the war years. In all, these chapters form a coherent and fascinating study which sheds much light on the bitter war years in Indonesia. Why these chapters in particular, why were they selected? Are these chapters really still of interest to the reader after so many years in which new research has been done by Dutch and other historians and much new information has been produced? The argument for translating these chapters seems to me a convincing one. The publishers point to the absence of English-language studies about these events in particular. While many English-language studies exist about Indonesian nationalism and the struggle for freedom, no such a study exists for the years of occupation. And the second question must also be answered in the affirmative. De Jong's text [End Page 594] solidly holds up; it is still the best general, comprehensive treatment of the war experiences of the Dutch and Eur-Asian population and of the Japanese internment camps for prisoners of war and civilians in the Netherlands Indies. This book can be recommended to the reader who wants to get informed about the experiences of the Dutch and Eur-Asian (and to a small extent also of the indigenous population) of the Indonesian archipelago during...

The Kraton: Selected Essays on Javanese Courts. Edited By Stuart Robson. Translated by Rosemary Robson-McKillop. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2003. xxvi, 397 pp. $33.00 (cloth).

The Kraton: Selected Essays on Javanese Courts. Edited By Stuart Robson. Translated by Rosemary Robson-McKillop. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2003. xxvi, 397 pp. $33.00 (cloth).

Paths of Origin, Gates of Life: A Study of Place and Precedence in Southwest Timor. Compiled and edited By McWilliam Andrew. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002. xvi, 331 pp. $40.00 (paper).

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