Some of these books discuss more than one specific historical period of course – the timelines can get a little messy – but we try to give you titles that have very important things to say about each phase of Indonesia’s history.īefore Indonesia there was Nusantara, an archipelago of different ethnic communities loosely connected for nearly 300 years by the spice trade, Melayu Pasar (Market Malay) lingua franca and war. There’s Indonesia’s declaration of independence in 1945 that started up the War of Independence against the returning Dutch troops, the 1965-66 mass killings of Indonesian communists that ushered in the bloody reign of Suharto’s ' Orde Baru' (New Order) and the fall of the regime in the 1998 Reformasi.

The list has been arranged according to historical periods bookmarked by major 'ruptures' in Indonesian history. Some are major titles you can't miss ( Pramoedya Ananta Toer's ' Buru Quartet' comes to mind) and some, like the Urban Poor Consortium’s anthology 'Rakyat Miskin Kota Menulis Riwayatnya Sendiri' ('The Urban Poor Write Their Own Stories'), are more obscure titles that we think deserve to be read more widely if we are to have a more nuanced understanding of our story as a nation.

We’ve selected 30 titles to get us started. This is not a definitive list, not a canon of the 'best books' about Indonesia, or the 'must-reads,' or a list of '30 books about Indonesia you have to read before you die,' but an invitation for all of us to think about what kind of stories we want to read – and the stories we want told – about our country. 8, at Maxx Coffee in Lippo Mall Kemang, South Jakarta, we're publishing this list of 30 books on Indonesian history, politics, economy, culture and literature that might help you gain a deeper understanding of the sprawling archipelago of more than 18,000 islands and 267 million people – and its long and complex story. As part of our Jakarta Globe Reading Club's 'Reading Indonesia' event on Saturday, Sept.

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