Academic
Five Journeys from Jakarta : Inside Sukarno's Indonesia
Outline: A book of first importance, timely, even urgent - and a distinguished work in its own right - on the puzzling island republic of Indonesia today ... Australasia has long been the professional "beat" of author-journalist Maslyn Williams, and Five Journeys from Jakarta is a direct product of that expert knowledge, reinforced by four months of travel in Indonesia in 1964. It is one of the few - if not the only - up-to-the-minute, thoroughgoing, yet popular profiles of that yeasty, sprawling, disturbing land available to American readers today. In Mr. Williams journeyings, Jakarta, the capital, was always the point of departure. The first was to Sulawesi, formerly Celebes; the second to Bali, by repute the most exotic of all the Indonesian islands. The third journey was to Sumatra; the fourth, in and about the Javanese hinterlands. Finally, Mr. Williams traveled to West Irian, newest acquisition of the Republic, on New Guinea. Wherever Mr. Williams traveled he lived with the people as they live. Accordingly his book is not solely a consideration of politicos and generals, though these are here - Sukarno, Dr. Subandrio, and Aidit, leader of the Communist Party, among them. It is even more an interpretation of Indonesia from the viewpoint of ordinary folk and their normal human aspirations - their history, their religion, their changing life, and their view of the world outside. In its humanity, its grace of language, its close identification with the land and the people, Five Journeys from Jakarta resembles Laurens van der Post's A View of All the Russians. The belief that genuine understanding is a prerequisite to effective policy is implicit in it. Because it documents that belief vividly and cogently it is essential reading.
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