Verandah of Violence ─ The Background to the Aceh Problem

Historians, political scientists, a journalist, and a theologian explore the history of the rocky relations between Aceh and the central government of Indonesia. They begin with the mixing of Indian and Indonesian people during the first millennium; consider factors before, during, after, colonization; and look at the current situation. The 15 essays were originally presented to a May 2004 conference in Singapore, but many have been revised in light of the tsunami of December 2004 and peace initiatives during 2005. Published in association with National University of Singapore. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Anthony Reid is the founding director of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. A student of Aceh since the 1960s, he is also the author of An Indonesian Frontier: Acehnese and Other Histories of Sumatra. Other contributors include Teuku Ibrahim Alfian, Edward Aspinall, M. Isa Sulaiman, Aleksius Jemadu, Damien Kingsbury, Lee Kam Hing, Leslie McCulloch, Rod McGibbon, E. Edwards McKinnon, Michelle Ann Miller, William Nessen, Peter G. Riddell, and Kirsten Schulze.