The Dark Side of Paradise

"The Dark Side of Paradise is an effective attempt to put the politics back into Bali's twentieth-century history. With a sure mastery of both Indonesian and Dutch sources, Robinson analyzes the class tensions between aristocrats and commoners during the late colonial period."Times Literary Supplement"Robinson's work reaches beyond history, amply illustrating the possibilities of what might be termed a 'comparative historical sociology' approach."Indonesia"Robinson's incisive, well-written work demolishes the fiction of the 'peaceful Balinese' that pervades academic and popular literature, and, for the first time, places modern political history directly into the middle of Balinese scholarship."Choice"This is a brilliant book that must be read by anybody interested in modern Indonesia."Journal of the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology