Book Reviews - Anne Booth, W.L. Korthals Altes, Changing economy in Indonesia, Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute (General trade statistics, 1822-1949; volume 12a). - Wim van den Doel, Robert Cribb, Historical dictionary of Indonesia. Metuchen, N.J., This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:34:46PM via free access BOEKBESPREKINGEN W.L. Korthals Altes, Changing Economy in Indonesia, Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute (General Trade Statistics, 1822-1949; volume 12a). ANNEBOOTH School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Changing Economy in Indonesia is the second volume in this series prepared by Dr. Korthals Altes. His other contribution was a reconstruction of the balance of payments of the Netherlands Indies from 1822 to 1939, a formidable challenge in that both the figures on commodity trade and inward and outward financial flows had to be painstakingly assembled from a number of sources. In this volume the emphasis is on trade statistics only, which were well documented in successive colonial statistical publications, and summarised in several of the pre-war compilations of data prepared by W.M.F. Mansvelt. Thus the volume covers material with which students of colonial Indonesian economic history are probably largely familiar, although it is still of great value to have all the data between two covers and annotated to the high standard we have come to expect from this series. The introduction contains a brief description of the development of Indonesian trade from 1822 to 1940, a discussion of the organization of trade statistics over those years, and a useful summary of changes in import and export duties. There is also a section on entrepot trade, free ports and free zones. We thus have much of the raw material for a study of changes in the colonial trade regime for the 120 years covered by the volume. The individual tables show Java's imports and exports from 1822 to 1873, and Netherlands Indies' imports and exports from 1874 to 1940. The data are then broken down according to the major countries of origin and destination, and major commodities. There are also tables on domestic trade from 1916 to 1940, broken down by commodity, import and export duties and total imports into, and exports from different island groups between 1879 and 1940. It is perhaps regrettable that the author did not present any tables on exports and imports of major commodities broken down by countries of destination and origin. For example, to find out how much of the rapid growth in imports from Japan after 1920 was accounted for by textiles as opposed to other trade sectors, we must still turn to the actual trade statistics, available only in very few locations outside the Netherlands. Similarly, more data on major exports by country of destination might have been useful, so that we could see more clearly just which commodities were responsible for the rapid increase in trade with other parts of Asia that occurred over the last five decades of the colonial era. Another gap is the Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:34:46PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 375 lack of quantitative data. This means that the data in the volume on non-rice prices will provide more information on export and import price movements. In spite of these gaps, like the previous volumes, this will be an invaluable reference for Indonesian economic history students. Its companion volume (12b), presenting data on regional patterns in foreign trade from 1911 to 1940, will be eagerly awaited. Robert Cribb, Historical dictionary of Indonesia. Metuchen, N.J., & London: The Scarecrow Press, 1992. ISBN 0.8108.2542.2. WIMVANDENDOEL Since the discipline of Indonesian history still lacks a useful and reliable handbook, the publication of the Historical dictionary of Indonesia by Robert Cribb should be welcomed by everyone interested in the history of Indonesia. It is the 9th volume of the Asian Historical Dictionaries, edited by Jon Woronoff. The first volume of the series (on Vietnam) was published in 1989, and dictionaries on the history of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jordan, Afghanistan, Laos, Singapore and Israel rapidly followed. As the series editor explains in the foreword, the historical dictionaries are meant for both the beginner and the specialist. By and large Robert Cribb has succeeded in making a functional dictionary for a certain group of users, with over 800 clear and concise entries, a chronology of Indonesian history, maps, and six appendices which deal with the governors-general of the Netherlands Indies, the Dutch ministers of the Colonies, the rulers of early states, the cabinets of the Republic of Indonesia, the most important office holders of Indonesia and election results. Very practicable and important is the rather extensive bibliography, which consists of more than 1100 titles and also lists the most important journals on Indonesian history. 'Indonesian history', by the way, is defined as the history of those areas which are at present governed by the Indonesian government. This means that (even rather extensive) attention is paid for instance to East Timor. With only 800 entries, Cribb had to narrow down his selection of topics. The choices he made have resulted in an emphasis on post-1800 political and economic history. Also, only by way of exception are personal names considered important enough to merit an entry. Sometimes the selection seems a bit arbitrary. For instance, Clifford Geertz is listed as an 'American anthropologist who formulated a number of important concepts for the understanding of Indonesian society'. This may be true, but why not also mention, then, exactly fifty years after his death, J.C. Van Leur, who Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:34:46PM via free access 376 Boekbesprekingen revolutionised Indonesian historiography? Similarly, why mention Cornell University and not Leiden University or other important institutions which deal (or have dealt) with Indonesian studies? It is easy to criticize details of a work which covers the entire expanse of Indonesian history like: that the name of governor-general Van der Capellen is constantly spelt the wrong way (C&pellan), that the controleur was certainly not an 'elder brother' to the bupati (this was the resident, a colonial civil servant of a rather different standing), that the novel Max Havelaar does not describe 'the oppressive practices linked with the cultivation system', that there is no entry 'Indie verloren, rampspoed geboren' on page 206, or that everyone will find some inaccuracies in the entries of her or his speciality. More serious is the impression that the information in Cribb's dictionary is rather superficial, that the 'specialists' for whom the dictionary was also made will find no more in it than they already know and will find many examples of careless editing in the text - in a way inevitable in the production of such a book but also rather annoying in a work which pretends to be a reference guide of high standard. Robert Cribb's dictionary is, however, still useful, but mainly as an aid for people who are not acquainted with Indonesian history. Kingsley Bolton and Helen Kwok (eds), Sociolinguistics today; International perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, 1992, 383 pp. ISBN 0.415.06410.4. Price £ 50.- hb. CD. GRIJNS This volume was developed from the First Hong Kong Conference on Language and Society (held 24-28 April 1988). It represents a first major endeavour to intensify the contact and exchange between sociolinguists working in Asia and in the West. The 64-page Introduction is written by Editor Kingsley Bolton. It opens with a short discussion of the present situation in Hong Kong as a very appropriate background for the conference (both the Editors teach linguistics at the University of Hong Kong). The first main section of the Introduction offers a well-balanced treatment of 'Sociolinguistics today' (development and scope; objectives and current per- spectives; recently published surveys of sociolinguistic studies; 'western sociolinguistics' versus 'Asian sociolinguistics'). The next section com- prises a survey of sociolinguistics in Asia with subsections on China, Hong Kong and Macau, India, Japan, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Thai- land, and some other Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The two final, shorter sections deal with future directions and international Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:34:46PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 377 perspectives in sociolinguistics. The bibliography contains some 400 items; together with the separate lists of references after each essay these make up a rich fund. There are thirteen conference papers and an additional one, contributed by R.B. Le Page. The papers are grouped under four headings: 'Sociolinguistic theory' (Peter Trudgill, Ruqaiya Hasan, Le Page); 'Language variation, cul- ture and society' (James Milroy, Lesley Milroy, Ping Chen, Peter Davies, Yat-Shing Cheung, Howard Giles-Nikolas Coupland-John Wiemann, Charles Macdonald); 'Multilingualism' (Andree Tabouret-Keller, Ralph Fasold, Andrew Gonzalez, Anthea Fraser Gupta); and 'Current perspectives in sociolinguistics' (Fasold, James Milroy, Giles). Each group of papers is preceded by another short introduction written by one or both of the Editor(s). With their careful and professional way of editing, the editors set a model for other congress volumes, and it is-for a good deal their merit that the book deserves its general and somewhat ambitious title. The Introduction and the additional introductory comments make the book quite recommendable as a textbook for courses of sociolinguistics in Asia departments (except for its price, no paperback edition being available). For lack of space I can only, very eclectically, mention a few topics which I think are of particular interest for Southeast Asianists. James Milroy suggests reinterpreting 'traditional' social variables such as class, rank and status as social identity variables, where the more comprehensive idea of social network would be the basis for the analysis.