Contributors

Greg Bankoff is Professor of Modern History at the University of Hull, spe- cializing in historical disaster studies and environmental history in an Asian and a global context. He is the author of Cultures of disaster; Society and natural hazard in the Philippines (London and New York 2003). His most recent book is (co-edited with Uwe Lübken and Jordan Sand) Flammable cities; Urban con- flagration and the making of the modern world (Madison 2012).

Raymond F. Betts (1925-2007) was Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. He wrote numerous books on French and European colonialism, among which Uncertain dimensions; Western overseas empires in the twentieth century (Minneapolis 1985) and France and decolonization, 1900-1960 (London 1991). His latest books are Decolonization (London and New York 1998/2004) and A history of popular culture; More of everything, faster and brighter (New York and London 2004).

Els Bogaerts taught Indonesian languages and culture at Leiden University. From 2002-2007 she was coordinator of the research programme ‘Indonesia across orders; The reorganization of Indonesian society 1930-1960’ at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam. Her current research is about the representation of Javanese culture on Indonesian television.

Anne Booth is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies and specializes in the economy of Indonesia and in the twentieth century. She authored Indonesian economic development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; A history of missed opportunities (London 1998), Colonial legacies; Economic and social development in East and Southeast Asia (Honolulu 2007) and The economic performance of the ASEAN economies from the mid-1990s (London 2009).

Freek Colombijn is associate professor in anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, specializing in Indonesian urban and environmental studies. His most recent book is Under construction; The politics of urban space and housing 288 Beyond empire and nation during the decolonization of Indonesia, 1930-1960 (Leiden 2010). He is editor of the Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde of KITLV.

Frederick Cooper is Professor of History at New York University. He is the author of a number of books on slavery and labour in (post)colonial Africa and of Colonialism in question; Theory, knowledge, history (Berkeley: 2005) and (with Jane Burbank) of Empires in world history; Power and the politics of differ- ence (Princeton 2010).

Cathérine Coquéry-Vidrovitch is professor emeritus at Université Paris VII- Denis-Diderot. Over the decades she has published numerous books on Africans, such as L’Afrique noire; De 1800 à nos jours (first editon Paris 1972), Histoire des villes d’Afrique noire; De origines à la décolonisation (Paris 1993), Les Africaines; Histoire des femmes d’Afrique noire du XIXe au XXe siècle (Paris 1994), and Enjeux politiques de l’histoire colonial (Marseille 2009). Her most recent book is Petite histoire de l’Afrique; L’Afrique au sud du Sahara, de la préhistoire à nos jours (Paris 2010).

Bill Freund is emeritus professor, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban South Africa and has written extensively on urban history and development issues of Durban, South Africa and Africa. Among his books are The making of contemporary Africa; The development of African society since 1800 (Boulder 1998), The African city; A history (Cambridge 2007) and, most recently (with Harald Witt), Development dilemmas in post-Apartheid South Africa (Durban 2010).

Karl Hack was associate professor at Nanyang Technological University in and is currently at , where he produced and chairs the History Department course on Empires. His research interests include decolonization, violence and ‘empire from below’. Among his latest books are Defence and decolonisation in Southeast Asia (Richmond 2001), (edited with Tobias Rettig), Colonial armies in Southeast Asia (London 2006) and (with Kevin Blackburn), War, memory and the making of modern and Singapore (Singapore 2012).

Jim Masselos is honorary reader in history at the University of Sydney. He is the author of a large number of books on India and Mumbai, among which are the oft-reprinted Indian nationalism; A history (fifth edition 2010), The city in action; Bombay struggles for power (Oxford 2007). His latest book (ed.) is The great empires of Asia (London 2010).