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REVIEWSand in recent years it has been accessible only in a few specialisedlibra ries. It is one of the most welcom e of the "Oxford in Asia"reprints, and in its attractive appearance lives up to the highstandard set by this series, although an index would have added toits usefulness.

C. M. TURN BULLUniversity o) Singapore

The Policy and Administration of the Dutch in Java. ByCLIVE DAY. W ith an Introd uction by JOHN BASTIN. OxfordUniversity Press, Kuala Lumpur, New York, London, Melbourne1966. Pp . xxi, 434. Ind ex . Price M$17.00.

I must apologize to the editor and readers for the tardiness inde live ring this brief review . T h e book itself is, of course, a well-known minor classic in the literature concerning colonial Indonesia,and I actually believe that, it is the first book ever written on theInd ies by an Am erican scholar. W ha t we now have before us isnot just a reprint, but a most handsomely turned out facsimile ofthe original, and long since out of print, edition published byM acm illan in New York and Lon don in 1904. W ha t a wonderfulidea of Dr. Bastin, the overall editor, and the publishers to bestowon us the bo un ty of these "Oxfo rd in Asia Re prin ts" Rejoice, ytscholars, trem ble ye an tiqu aria n book dealers For there is mu ch,much more that, has already been done, including Raffles (yes,Raffles in the first, 1817 edition ) an d M arsden, an d, amo ng themo dern s, M ills and Em erson, with o thers yet to come. W e trulynever had it so good, to use current American slang.

Back the n, to my apology. W he n I received the invitation toreview Day's book, I felt duty-b oun d to accept the ho no ur. For, 1reflected, I must, be the first historian on the Yale faculty to beconcerned with Indonesia since Professor Day's time, half-a-centuryago. In fact, I pla nn ed to w rite a different kin d of review. Iwanted to ascertain and tell my readers why Clive Day, in those far-away days, long before the world had become as uncomfortably smallas it now is, long before something called the "National Interest"would generate the interest an d the funds tha t wo uld call forthSoutheast Asian "area centers" on these shores, long before Americanstudents would flock to lectures and seminars on Indonesianhistory well, if not. flock, at least come in fairly substantialnumbers why, in short, an American scholar at the turn of this

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REVIEWScentury should have immersed himself in the affairs of the Dutchcolonial em pire in Asia. T o someone like myself usually moreprone to writing institutional and social history than biography,these seemed intriguing questions, rendered the more tempting bythe fact that some of my senior Yale colleagues were students ofDay's. (So m uch for co ntin uity , tra ditio n, et. al.) But my projectbarely got off the ground, and, having waited too long and in vainfor the reasonably leisurely hours which would be required to followthe meagre leads I got (including, perhaps, interviews with some ofDay's family members still domiciled in the New Haven area), 1sadly conclud ed tha t it simply co uld n't be do ne. N ot now is thetime for an academic on active multiple duty for such an idleinquiry, alas

The D utch in Java was not Day's doctoral dissertation nor did he,as far as I have been able to ascertain, ever teach a course on Asia atYale. W heth er Day spent some time in Ho lland in prep aratio n ofthe book I cann ot tell; bu t it is fairly certa in that h e did not. visitthe Indies for this purpo se. Yet he apparen tly had enoug h of animpetus to pursue the sizeable Dutch printed records, primary andsecondary, to write a thorough and careful treatise on the CultivationSystem cultuurstelsel), by which the Dutch finally managed to escapefrom virtual nation al ban kru ptcy after 1830. "T hr ou gh ou t his dis-cussion the author expresses a very unfavorable opinion of the cul-ture system," wrote a contemporary reviewer, "as well with regard toits effects upon the natives as to its general economic efficiency."(P . S. Reinsch, in American Historical Review, Vol. X, 1904/05,p. 392). T h a t period in Indo ne sian colonial history is still, or hasagain become, quite controversial, one eminent Dutch historianhaving in our days, and contrary to Clive Day, concluded that thecultuurstelsel was the biggest boon ever to have been bestowed uponthe peop le of Java by their erstwhile overlords. Un den iably, how-ever, Day's book has in many respects stood the test of time magni-ficently, as Dr. Bastin's illu m ina tin g In tro du cti on emp hasises. A ndhis laissez-faireframe of refe rence to one side, he pro vides the care-ful reader with a large nu m be r of suggestive observ ations. I wasparticularly struck by his discussion of the effect of the system onwhat he called the "internal organization" of the Javanese village.For here, in a nutshell, he gleaned the key to the phenomena whichClifford Geertz has in recent years termed "agricultural involution"and "shared poverty:" "Claims to satisfy ind ivid ua l rights dis-appeared," so Day wrote, "with the decrease in the individual inte-rests and vo lunta ry labo r of the natives. In spite of an a bu nd an ceof free land the population heaped itself up in the villages, to divide

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RKVIKWSthe burdens among more families, a n d t h e l a n d s h a r e o f e a c hfamily grew sm aller and sm alle r." (P'.ige .'5().'5, einpliasis added.)

It's good to have this fine book available and within the financialreach of stude nts and teachers. T ho ug h less excitingly w ritten thansome mo re rec en t works on Ind onesia (Geertz's especially ), it fullydeserves a place of honour on our book shelves and, more important,in our heads.HARRY J. BENDA

Yale University

Th e Transition to Gu ided Dem ocracy: Indonesian Politics,1957 59 By DANIEL S. L E V . M odern Indonesia Project, CornellUniversity, Ithaca, New York 1966. Pp. iii, 298. Appendix.Price US$3.50.

The political history of independent Indonesia, which had al-ready been covered for the years 1945-57 in two earlier standardworks from Cornell University by Kahin and Feith, is carriedthrough the crucial years 1957-59 in this excellent study by Dr. Lev.It is a worthy addition to the series and my only complaint aboutit is that some of the sparkle and originality which has characterisedmany of Dr. Lev's other contributions on things Indonesian has beensubmerged by the necessity to present his material comprehensivelyfor the purposes of a doctoral thesis.Although Dr. Lev is a political scientist, whose main concern is

to explore the political processes which led to the establishment ofGuided Democracy in 1959, this is contemporary history in the bestsense. Virtually all available sources appear to have been thoroughlysifted and a mass of valuable detail is presented, as well as a clearover-all inte rpr eta tion . T h e auth or com bines objectivity with animpressive degree of insight and empathy into the predicaments ofall the m ain actors in the dra m a of those years. (Ad mirab le charac-ter sketches are given of Soeka rno and th at insufficiently app recia tedm an, Prim e Minister Djuan da.) T h e reader is given a sense of theremorseless logic of events which led to the abandonment of "liberaldemocracy" in 1958-59, yet the interplay of ideas which contributedto the shaping of Guided Democracy is one of the most illuminatingpar ts of the book . F ut ur e historians wo uld do well to no te the veryfair appraisal of the Communist Party's role as a defender of parlia-mentary institutions (for its own tactical reasons, no doubt, and with-out any commitment to "liberal democracy" as such not that its56