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**Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024**

A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world.

‘Astounding . . . history at its best’ Yuval Noah Harari
‘Utterly compelling . . . masterful’ Financial Times *Summer Reads 2024*
‘Superb’ Guardian

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2024*

On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation: Indonesia.

Four million civilians had died during the Japanese wartime occupation that ousted its Dutch colonial regime. Another 200,000 people would lose their lives in the astonishingly brutal conflict that ensued – as the Dutch used savage violence to reassert their control, and as Britain and America became embroiled in pacifying Indonesia’s guerrilla war of resistance: the ‘Revolusi’. It was not until December 1949 that the newly created United Nations finally brought the conflict an end – and with it, 350 years of colonial rule – setting a precedent that would reshape the world.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative that is alive with human detail at every turn. A landmark publication, Revolusi shows Indonesia’s struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century.

‘A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis, and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece’ SEBASTIAN MALLABY

‘One of the most unlikely and astonishing sagas … a towering achievement’ THOMAS MEANEY

‘A magisterial but gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now’ JASON BURKE

‘At once vast and intimate, a history in colour’ LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK

‘A masterly display of the historian’s craft’ J M COETZEE

‘A wonderful and important book’ PETER FRANKOPAN

Publisher Review

An astounding feat of both research and storytelling. History at its best -- Yuval Harari A long overdue and utterly compelling narrative history of the birth of Indonesia . . . unfolds over a vast geopolitical canvas and yet never falters . . . It is as intricate as the waterways of the archipelago and yet it hums along, like a steamer on the Java Sea, propelled by the stories of its astonishing cast * Financial Times * A wonderful and important book. David Van Reybrouck has written an authoritative and powerful history of Indonesia that not only reframes the birth of a nation but helps challenge ideas about the end of the European Age of Empire -- Peter Frankopan A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis, and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece -- Sebastian Mallaby Relating the story of this place is . . . a mammoth task, requiring a monumental research effort. This is what the Belgian historian David Van Reybrouck has achieved in his superb history, Revolusi * Guardian * A rare blend of formal daring, intellectual resourcefulness and journalistic fluency, Revolusi briskly ushers Indonesia onto the centre stage of modern history. It reveals, too, decolonisation as the main event of the 20th century - what has shaped our present and will decisively define the future -- Pankaj Mishra A majestic and beautifully written ode to revolution that aims to remind us of the immense significance of this period of history... compellingly written and marvellously translated * Times Literary Supplement * A masterful account * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2024* * A comprehensive, authoritative, and highly readable history of Indonesia, with a focus on the crisis decade of the 1940s, from the Japanese invasion to liberation from Dutch rule in 1949. Seamlessly interwoven with hundreds upon hundreds of personal testimonies, Van Reybrouck's narrative is a masterly display of the historian's craft and a welcome corrective to the fiction that the Dutch in the East Indies were a benign force -- J M Coetzee David Van Reybrouk's book on the Democratic Republic of Congo was an extraordinary tour de force, setting a new standard for accessible and intelligent historical writing about sub-saharan Africa. His new work, Revolusi, is as passionate, rigourous, perceptive, powerful and highly readable. Again, Van Reybrouk combines a historian's clear analytic eye with a journalist's joy at discovering and recounting the experiences of participants in great events. The Indonesian revolution, with all its complexity and horror and excitement and influence, comes alive over these 600 or so pages. This is a magisterial but gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now -- Jason Burke Real history invariably resides in the memories of 'ordinary people,' people who fall through the cracks, who are excluded from the 'panoptic' view of history, or the history of the victors (History with a capital H). Among the book's many gifts-the depth of its research, the breadth of its inquiries, the poetry of its prose-it is this that has affected me the most: the insistence and humility of finding and allowing these voices, these eyewitnesses to history, to come to the fore. With scientific meticulousness and a rare narrative brilliance, Revolusi gives us a history at once vast and intimate, a history in colour -- Laksmi Pamuntjak History as it should be. Carried by a democracy of ordinary voices, meticulous research, an eye for decisive detail, vivid language and drama, Van Reybrouck forges a fantastic visionary compass to where history was heading at the time: the imagining of a new world order by people of colour -- Antjie Krog David Van Rebyrouck's Revolusi is a major account of one of the most unlikely and astonishing sagas of decolonization. A fully embodied chronicle that combines the skills of a journalist and a historian, the book is a towering achievement. It was the last chance to tell the story of the Indonesian revolution while some of its participants were still alive, and Van Reybrouck seized it -- Thomas Meaney It's often been said that Indonesia is the world's largest 'invisible country'. If that's true, the revolution beginning in 1945 must surely be the most consequential 'invisible revolution' of the last hundred years . . . compelling * History Today * David Van Reybrouck's immensely readable new history . . . fills an important gap . . . Van Reybrouck has visited just about every place that figures in Indonesia's history, and evokes them with a narrative zest all too rare among historians -- Adam Hochschild * Atlantic * A detailed account, enriched with oral testimony ... Revolusi will hopefully stimulate new interest in Indonesian history in the West * Literary Review * [David Van Reybrouck] is a historian who gets his boots dirty. From remote Asian islands to Dutch nursing homes, [he] has tracked down eyewitnesses to Indonesia's colonial period, producing the definitive account of a neglected epoch * Economist * An electrifying narrative . . . The strength of Mr. Van Reybrouck's chronicle lies as much in the hundreds of interviews he conducted with very old participants in (and witnesses to) the war as in his impressive command of historical detail -- Tunku Varadarajan * Wall Street Journal * This powerful account of the colonization of Indonesia takes the form of a people's history, using interviews with those who lived under - and sometimes defied - Dutch rule * New Yorker * This meticulous history of Indonesia spans several centuries, focusing on Dutch colonization of the archipelago and a drawn-out internal revolution that embroiled British, American and Japanese forces * New York Times Book Review *