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Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Chapter 1: Murder in Maumere -- Two Texts -- Citizens in the Postcolony -- References -- Chapter 2: Rajas Rule -- Sikka in History -- An Ignorant and Idle People -- Sikka's Sacred Canopy -- Republican Challenge -- References -- Chapter 3: Postcolonial Citizens -- Birth of a Rebel -- Towns -- Opportunity -- The Demonstration -- Scorched Earth -- The Ethnic Organisation -- Inclusion Works -- References -- Chapter 4: Factions and Faith -- In Search of a Patron -- Factional Fights -- A New Authority -- Tests of Strength -- Bosses Rule -- References -- Chapter 5: That Chilling Moment -- Communists in Sikka -- Military Politics -- The Thin Wet Sheet -- One Wrong Turn -- Aftermath -- References -- Chapter 6: Citizenship and State Formation in Postcolonial Indonesia -- The Puzzle Solved -- Decentralised Despotism -- Postcolonial Citizenship -- Today? -- References -- Index.

What holds Indonesia together? In The Making of Middle Indonesia, Gerry van Klinken develops an innovative historical explanation that looks beyond national elites to middle classes in provincial towns. Readership: The book should be of interest to students of Asian history, in particular those reading about state formation, democratization, political integration and urbanization (political geography, urban anthropology, historical sociology).

PurposeThis paper focuses on the adaptations societies make to climate-related disasters. How they learnt from them in the past should indicate how they will respond in the more climate-stressed future. National typhoon disaster politics arise when citizens demand disaster protection from their state.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyzes one episode of typhoon politics in each of three Asian countries before 1945: the Philippines (1928), India (1942) and Japan (1934). These three countries show high variance in state capacity and level of democracy. Discourse data are found in contemporary newspaper accounts.FindingsIn each case, the typhoon disaster politics were shaped by the "distance" (geographical, institutional, class and cultural) between citizen-victims and the state. Where that distance was great (rural Philippines, Bengal-India), the state tended to minimise victimhood. Where it was small (urban Japan), adaptation was serious and rapid.Social implicationsThe findings should stimulate public discussion of the way in which past social relations and power dynamics surrounding climate-related disasters might influence the present. As the political character of climate change adaptation grows clearer, so does the need for debate to be well-informed.Originality/valueMost historical work on climate-related disasters has focused either on the natural phenomena, or on their societal impact. The present paper's focus on adaptation is part of a small but growing scholarly effort to bend the debate towards the evolution of adaptive capacity.

A common assumption in Digital Humanities (dh) project design is that 'data' is simply there, ready to 'drive' the research. The funders of a dh project described in this paper adhered to this positivistic assumption in their founding White Paper. They saw disciplines as blinders, best left behind in order to better see 'patterns'. However, positivism was not a real-world option for the social scientists, mathematicians, and information scientists engaged in this 'blue sky' project, which investigated digitized historical newspaper texts. Far from being a hindrance to their work, disciplinary traditions were central to any success they achieved. Instead of moving 'beyond' disciplines, they developed a pluralist, cross-disciplinary dialogue. Each participant contributed out of the epistemic convention that had proven fruitful in their discipline. The approach required an intellectual and emotional commitment to dialogue, and produced tantalizing rather than wholly satisfying results. But it holds promise of more.