Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta - home to over 10 million people with more than 30 million in its greater metropolitan area - stands as a testament to resilience, reinvention and the enduring spirit of its inhabitants.
Inspired by the vibrant mix of people who have settled here over the centuries and by the labyrinthine kampung that crisscross ......
This is a particularly vivid biography of a remarkable individual, an Indonesian historian and public intellectual who was both a public figure and a multi-minority member, being Dutch-educated, Indonesian Chinese, gay, alcoholic, irreligious and hedonist, in a conservative society. This biography delves into its subject's interior life: the ......
Intrigue, betrayal and war in Indonesia's greatest empire
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Majapahit kingdom reigned supreme in eastern Java, and its influence stretched far and wide, throughout present-day Indonesia, parts of the Malay peninsula and the island of Tumasek, now Singapore.
Race and the Question of Palestine explores how race operates as a technology of power and colonial rule, a political and economic structure, a set of legal and discursive practices, and a classificatory system.
Chinas leader, Xi Jinping, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world—and one of the least understood. Much can be learned, however, about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads from the memory and legacy of his father, the revolutionary Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002). The elder Xi served the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for ......
China is a nation like no other. Once a constellation of fractured states, today it reigns supreme as the greatest power in the Eastern Hemisphere. From the Great Wall and the Forbidden City to the Belt and Road Initiative and the unrelenting rollout of the electric vehicle industry, the scale and grandeur of China's enterprises have always ......
An Illustrated History of Indonesia describes the history of Indonesia from prehistoric times up to the present day. The narrative is an amalgam of Indonesia's own original traditions, most of Asia's great faiths and civilisations and 450-odd years of Western colonialism. Its turbulent passage since independence has produced a country with ......
In the beginning, the story goes, two gods conjured the islands out of primordial cha- os with the tip of a sacred spear. The 'Great Eight-Island Country', Japan has always followed its own unique path, often alone through centuries of deliberate isolation. Contact and conflict with other nations has often taken the form of flashpoints of ......
Hamas rules Gaza and the lives of the two million Palestinians who live there. Demonized in media and policy debates, various accusations and critical assumptions have been used to justify extreme military action against Hamas. The reality of Hamas is, of course, far more complex. Neither a democratic political party nor a terrorist group, Hamas ......
