Indonesian Nationalism Revisited

In: Journal of Southeast Asian studies, Band 18, Heft 2, S. 294-302

Abstract

With two large volumes, theDerdeandVierde Stuk(third and fourth volumes), containing 1794 pages, Drs R. C. Kwantes has brought to an end, the ZWO funded collection of colonial documents on the indigenous nationalist movement in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia. After the appearance of the first tome, dealing with the nationalist movement up to the year 1917 and compiled in 1967, by the now deceased Professor S. L. van der Wal, Kwantes has been responsible for the coverage of the period 1917–23 (published in 1975), the period 1923–28 (published in 1978), and the present two volumes, here under review, one for 1928–33 (published in 1981) and the other for 1933–42 (published in 1982). All these volumes bear the hallmarks of meticulous professional polish and careful selection, and anyone even fleetingly familiar with the documentary opulence of the Dutch colonial archives has all the reason to deeply appreciate Kwantes' editing labours of the past few years. Moreover, in annotations, bibliographical references, the listing of detailed person- and subject-indexes, and of source-data against their origin, together with lengthy 34 pages in theDerde, and 33 in theVierde Stukcontent-abstracts in English, Kwantes did surpass the skills of his deceased predecessor, thus adding an extra degree of distinction and flavour to the entire multi-work collection he compiled.