Indonesia Etc: Exploring The Improbable Nation [L0024]

2014 - HCDJ in nice clean condition. Includes maps. An entertaining and thought-provoking portrait of Indonesia: a rich, dynamic, and often maddening nation awash with contradictions. Jakarta tweets more than any other city on earth, but 80 million Indonesians live without electricity and many of its communities still share in ritual sacrifices. Declaring independence in 1945, Indonesia said it would "work out the details of the transfer of power etc. as soon as possible." With over 300 ethnic groups spread across 13,500 islands, the world's fourth most populous nation has been working on that "etc." ever since. Bewitched by Indonesia for twenty-five years, Elizabeth Pisani recently traveled 26,000 miles around the archipelago in search of the links that bind this impossibly disparate nation. Fearless and funny, Pisani shares her deck space with pigs and cows, bunks down in a sulfurous volcano, and takes tea with a corpse. Along the way, she observes Big Men with child brides, debates corruption and cannibalism, and ponders "sticky" traditions that cannot be erased.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Page turner by an accomplished journalist who has the linguistic and interpersonal skills to go anywhere and everywhere in these amazing islands. For a country this large and this diverse, there is very little in English outside academic books that explores the heart and soul of the nation. Pisani was a Reuters correspondent in the bad old days, and so can chart the changes as Indonesia emerges as a democratic as well as economic success. Anyone interested in Southeast Asia should read this book, and it is also necessary reading for anyone planning a trip or a business venture or any other engagement with this grand country."; "Most of all, Pisani communicates her delight at the people and customs she finds. She attends funerals and weddings, celebrates old customs and smiles at youthful rural attempts at Jakarta hip, and delights in the landscape. She hears from local activists and unofficial historians about massacres, elections, the tsunami, illegal logging. But she also sees widespread resourcefulness, community cooperation, and a generosity of spirit, a tolerance of difference."; "This is a wonderful book--exceptionally well written and researched. This part memoir, part historical retrospective of the birth of a nation, reels you in with richly wrought scenery and characters as vivid as the colors of Indonesia's forests and coral reefs. The narrative is packed with detail about the history and contemporary politics of the world's fourth most populous nation, but in a very personal narrative that is witty and charming, and impossible to put down. I highly recommend this book. I only wish it had come out before I started to explore Indonesia on my own. It is a real gem."