Retrieving the Bandung Conference … moment by moment
In: Journal of Southeast Asian studies, Band 43, Heft 3, S. 523-530
ISSN: 1474-0680
The Asian–African Conference at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 has been written into twentieth-century history as 'a moment' made up of 'little histories', as the titles of the two volumes reviewed here suggest. Both belong to the literature on the Bandung Conference published since its fiftieth anniversary, the broad scope of which underscores the intricate and diffuse nature of the Conference. While offering new perspectives, the contributors also add to its ambiguity: Was Bandung a continuation of the struggle against imperialism? An episode of the Cold War? A protest against centuries of racial humiliation? Or a communist plot? It may well have comprised elements of all these.