Indonesia, a nation of 270 million people, is one of history's most underestimated world powers. From the golden age of the Majapahit Empire to Dutch colonial brutality, from CIA-backed Cold War massacres to today's economic powerhouse in the Pacific—this is the story of a people who refuse to be broken by western imperialism.
Join Triploi as we look at the events that shaped modern Indonesia, as well as why West Papua remains occupied, how Bali's spiritual culture was commodified, and why this archipelago nation might just rewrite the global power structure in our lifetime.
References and reading list:
- Slamet Muljana, The Majapahit Kingdom: A Golden Age of Indonesian History, 1976
- Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, 1988
- Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, 2020
- Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America, 1971
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind, 1986
- Eben Kirksey, Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power, 2012
- José Ramos-Horta, Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor, 1987
- Elizabeth Pisani, Indonesia, Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation, 2014
- Farish Noor, The Asian Century: Economic and Strategic Implications, 2015
- Arundhati Roy, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, 2014
- Mahmood Mamdani, Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity, 2012
