Revolusi

“Astounding.… History at its best.” – Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens“The strength of Mr. Van Reybrouck’s chronicle lies as much in the hundreds of interviews he conducted with very old participants in (and witnesses to) the war as in his impressive command of historical detail.” – Tunku Varadarajan - Wall Street Journal“This meticulous history of Indonesia spans several centuries, focusing on Dutch colonization of the archipelago and a drawn-out internal revolution that embroiled British, American and Japanese forces.” – New York Times Book Review“This powerful account of the colonization of Indonesia takes the form of a people’s history, using interviews with those who lived under—and sometimes defied—Dutch rule.” – The New Yorker”[David Van Reybrouck] is a historian who gets his boots dirty. From remote Asian islands to Dutch nursing homes, [he] has tracked down eyewitnesses to Indonesia’s colonial period, producing the definitive account of a neglected epoch.” – Economist”[An] immensely readable new history [that] fills an important gap.… Van Reybrouck has visited just about every place that figures in Indonesia’s history, and evokes them with a narrative zest all too rare among historians.” – Adam Hochschild - Atlantic“A long overdue and utterly compelling narrative history of the birth of Indonesia.… It is as intricate as the waterways of the archipelago and yet it hums along, like a steamer on the Java Sea, propelled by the stories of its astonishing cast.” – Alec Russell - Financial Times“An outstanding account of one nation’s unsung fight for freedom.… The firsthand narratives are enthralling.… A magnificent book.” – Todd Kushner - Washington Independent Review of Books“A majestic and beautifully written ode to revolution that aims to remind us of the immense significance of this period of history.… Compellingly written and marvellously translated.” – Michael Vatikiotis, Times Literary Supplement (UK)“A superb history of the struggle for independence after three centuries of Dutch colonial rule.” – Charlie English - Guardian“Important.… [D]eciphers a critical chapter in Asian and global history.” – Kirkus Reviews“A rare blend of formal daring, intellectual resourcefulness, and journalistic fluency, Revolusi briskly ushers Indonesia onto the center stage of modern history. It reveals, too, decolonization as the main event of the twentieth century—what has shaped our present and will decisively define the future.” – Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger“A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis, and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece.” – Sebastian Mallaby, author of More Money Than God“A comprehensive, authoritative, and highly readable history. Seamlessly interwoven with hundreds upon hundreds of personal testimonies, David Van Reybrouck’s narrative is a masterly display of the historian’s craft and a welcome corrective to the fiction that the Dutch in the East Indies were a benign force.” – J. M. Coetzee, author of The Pole“Among the book’s many gifts—the depth of its research, the breadth of its inquiries, the poetry of its prose—it is this that has affected me the most: the insistence and humility of finding and allowing these voices, these eyewitnesses to history, to come to the fore. With scientific meticulousness and a rare narrative brilliance, Revolusi gives us a history at once vast and intimate, a history in color.” – Laksmi Pamuntjak, author of The Question of Red“Passionate, rigorous, perceptive, powerful, and highly readable. Van Reybrouck combines a historian’s clear analytic eye with a journalist’s joy at discovering and recounting the experiences of participants in great events. This is a magisterial but gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now.” – Jason Burke, author of The 9⁄11 Wars“History as it should be! Carried by a democracy of ordinary voices, meticulous research, an eye for decisive detail, vivid language, and drama, David Van Reybrouck forges a fantastic visionary compass to where history was heading at the time…the imagining of a new world order by people of color.” – Antjie Krog, author of Country of My Skull

David Van Reybrouck is an acclaimed playwright and the internationally best-selling author of Congo, a finalist for the Cundill History Prize. He holds a doctorate from Leiden University and has taught at Bard College. He lives in Brussels, Belgium.