Indonesia is in the midst of an epic transition as it moves from decades of authoritarian government to a new era of democratic opening, from years of secular government to a time of struggle over the role of Islam in public life, and from the breakdown of a "miracle" economy to a search for resilience in the face of global forces. In this timely work, leading scholars analyze the causes of the social, political, and economic crises that erupted in Indonesia in the late 1990s, the response...

This text presents an accessible introduction to the most significant problems facing Indonesia and raises issues for further investigations. It addresses such questions as: how has Indonesia managed to remain one country?; and is there a truly national Indonesian culture?

Will the nations of Southeast Asia maintain their strategic autonomy, or are they destined to become a subservient periphery of China?This book's expert authors address this pressing question in multiple contexts. What clues to the future lie in the modern history of Sino-Southeast Asian relations? How economically dependent on China has the region already become? What do Southeast Asians think of China? Does Beijing view the region in proprietary terms as its own backyard? How has...