Under the slogan ‘Merdeka!’ the Republic of Indonesia rushed into a battle for independence – a struggle of which no one could predict the outcome. Harry Poeze and Henk Schulte Nordholt provide a new narrative about the revolution, one that focuses not only on the fight against the Dutch but also on the precarious rise of the Republic.

After the horrors of the Japanese occupation, the Republican leaders needed to somehow build a new state. From the Dutch side, they had to deal with short-sighted politicians and warmongering soldiers. On its own side, the Republic was confronted with wayward and combative youths, autonomous military leaders, conservative federalists, revolutionary communists, and radical Muslims. Coup d’états, a civil war and two Dutch military attacks threatened the survival of the Republic. That is why the victory finally achieved by the Indonesian leaders is the revolution’s greatest miracle.

Harry Poeze is a former publisher, an honorary fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (Koninklijk Instituut van Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, KITLV) in Leiden, and one of the leading researchers of the Indonesian Revolution.

Henk Schulte Nordholt is emeritus professor of Indonesian history at the University of Leiden and an honorary fellow at the KITLV in Leiden.

Foreword

1 The colonial state: violence and modernity, resistance and repression, 1900–1941

2 The Japanese occupation: hope, exploitation and mobilisation, 1942–1945

3 The proclamation, May–September 1945

4 Local revolutions: bersiap and daulat, October 1945 to mid-1946

5 The Dutch reoccupation and decolonisation, 1945–1946

6 The Persatuan Perdjuangan, October 1945 to May 1946

7 The army, June–July 1946

8 Diplomacy and warfare, August 1946 to January 1948

9 Federalism, 1947–1948

10 Civil war, February–November 1948

11 The second attack on the Republic, October 1948 to January 1949

12 Violence, diplomacy and independence, 1949

13 Unity, 1950

Epilogue

Biographical sketches of some of the main characters

List of illustration

Bibliography

Index