Di Negeri Orang: Puisi Penyair Indonesia Exsil

Yayasan Sejarah Budaya Indonesia (YSBI)

This book is a collection of poems written by 15 Indonesian writers who have been living as exiles since Suharto�s rise to power in 1965. Beautifully designed and produced, it should help those in Indonesia appreciate how much talent was lost from their country. Among the poets included are Hersri Setiawan, Kuslan Budiman, and Asahan Alham.

Jakarta, Amanah-Lontar and YSBI, 2002

253pp, ISBN 979-8083-42-3 (pbk), Rp 60,000

Raiding the land of the foreigners: the limits of the nation

Danilyn Rutherford

Focusing on Biak, a set of islands off West Papua, this book offers a new way of thinking about the nation. Taking in the dynamics of Biak social life and the islands� long history of millennial unrest, Rutherford shows how practices that indicate Biaks� submission to national authority actually reproduce anti-national understandings of space, time, and self.

Princeton University Press, December 2002

304pp, ISBN 0691095914 (pbk), US$24.95

The politics of power: Freeport in Suharto�s Indonesia

Denise Leith

This book takes a detailed look at the changing relationships between Freeport, Suharto, the Indonesian military, the traditional landowners, and environmental and human rights organizations. It examines how and why an American company was able to operate in West Papua with impunity for nearly thirty years and adapt to, indeed thrive in, a business culture anchored in corruption and nepotism.

University of Hawaii Press, December 2002

352pp, ISBN 0824825667 (pbk), US$23.00

Sexual politics in Indonesia

Saskia Wieringa

This book analyzes the interaction between nationalism, feminism, and socialism in Indonesia from the beginning of the 20^th century to the Suharto years. The focus is on the women�s organization Gerwani which was banned by the Suharto regime for allegedly being a wing of the communist party.

Palgrave Macmillan, September 2002

412pp, ISBN 0333987187 (hbk), US$78.00

United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969: The Anatomy of a Betrayal

John Saltford

This book examines the role of the international community in the handover of the Dutch colony of West Papua/Irian Jaya to Indonesia. It questions whether the West Papuan people ever genuinely exercised self-determination guaranteed to them in the UN-brokered agreement of 1962. Particular emphasis is given to the central part played by the United Nations in the implementation of this agreement.

RoutledgeCurzon, December 2002, 256pp.

ISBN 070071751X (hbk), US$90.00

Bitter Dawn: East Timor -- A People's Story

Irena Cristalis

This book is a vivid first-hand account of the lives of individual Timorese during the long decades of Indonesia's occupation, of their often heroic struggle for freedom, and of their efforts to make sense of the dramatic historic shifts engulfing them. Based on years of research and lengthy interviews, it explores the complexities of East Timor's internal politics. It tells the story of the ordinary students, farmers, nuns, priests, journalists and others, who found themselves playing extraordinary roles in terrible times.

London, Zed Books, September 2002, 320pp.

ISBN 1842771450 (pbk), US$

Minorities, Modernity and the Emerging Nation: Christians in Indonesia, a Biographical Approach

Gerry van Klinken

This book examines the development of Indonesian nationalism from the viewpoint of a minority -- the urban Christian elite. Placed between the Indonesian nationalist promise of freedom and the Dutch colonial promise of modernity, their experience of late colonialism was filled with ambiguity. This study traces the lives of five politically active Indonesian Christians.

Leiden, KITLV, 300 pp.

ISBN 906718151X (pbk), December 2002, $35.00

Good times and bad times in Java: socio-economic dynamics in two villages towards the end of the 20^th century

Jan Breman and Gunawan Wiradi

Based on anthropoligical fieldwork in two villages along the coast of West Java, this book discusses the repercussions of work and welfare in the rural hinterland. It argues that since the start of the Asian economic crisis the poverty level, already much higher than officially conceded, rose to include more than half the households.

KITLV Press, 2002

340pp, ISBN 9067181870 (pbk), US$33.00

Kopassus: Inside Indonesia's Special Forces

Kenneth Conboy

In a nation where the military has played an influential social and political role since its founding, perhaps no unit has wielded more power and seen more action than Kopassus, Indonesia's Special Forces. This elite group of commandos has influenced nearly every major policy decision since its inception in 1952. This book exposes this secretive and controversial unit.

Jakarta, Equinox Publishing, 352pp.

ISBN 9799589886 (pbk), November 2002, US$15.00