Gangsters and Revolutionaries is the first in-depth study of one of the 'people's armies' which emerged from the chaos at the close of World War II in Indonesia to join the struggle for Indonesian independence in 1945. It traces the story of the People's Militia of Greater Jakarta from its origins as a loose network of petty criminals and labor bosses in the slums of urban Jakarta and the feudal estates of the surrounding countryside, to its destruction at the hands of the Indonesian army in the late 1940s. This book examines the social basis of the Indonesian revolution, especially the ways in which the revolutionary forces made use of existing social structures in mobilizing a popular following. It also highlights the painful process by which the new Indonesian state discarded and suppressed groups which had been instrumental in its own rise to power. Archival records, contemporary newspapers and interviews with survivors have been used to shed new light on the early history of the Indonesian army, showing a tangled politics in which regular and irregular units, general staff officers and the Ministry of Defense vied for influence and struggled to formulate a strategy for guerrilla war. Gangsters and Revolutionaries introduces a host of unexpected but fascinating characters, from the cat-eating General Mustopo and the implacable Haji Darip to the gangster unit which saw service with the Dutch as Her Majesty's Irregular Troops. Robert Cribb is Senior Fellow in Indonesian History at the Australian National University. His research focuses on Indonesian national identity, mass violence, environmental politics and historical geography. He is the author of the Historical Atlas of Indonesia (2000).

Written by a specialist in southeast Asian history this study is based on a detailed examination of the people's armies which emerged in Indonesia towards the end of WWII. Through archival records, contemporary newspapers and extensive interviewing the author provides an important insight into the social basis of the Indonesian revolution. Contains a bibliography and an index.

In modern-day Havana, the remnants of the glamorous past are everywhere—old hotel-casinos, vintage American cars & flickering neon signs speak of a bygone era that is widely familiar & often romanticized, but little understood. In Havana Nocturne, T.J. English offers a multifaceted true tale of organized crime, political corruption, roaring nightlife, revolution & international conflict that interweaves the dual stories of the Mob in Havana & the event that would overshadow it, the Cuban Revolution. As the Cuban people labored under a violently repressive regime throughout the 50s, Mob leaders Meyer Lansky & Charles "Lucky" Luciano turned their eye to Havana. To them, Cuba was the ultimate dream, the greatest hope for the future of the US Mob in the post-Prohibition years of intensified government crackdowns. But when it came time to make their move, it was Lansky, the brilliant Jewish mobster, who reigned supreme. Having cultivated strong ties with the Cuban government & in particular the brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista, Lansky brought key mobsters to Havana to put his ambitious business plans in motion. Before long, the Mob, with Batista's corrupt government in its pocket, owned the biggest luxury hotels & casinos in Havana, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, the world's biggest celebrities, the most beautiful women & gambling galore. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara & others who would lead the country's disenfranchised to overthrow their corrupt government & its foreign partners—an epic cultural battle that English captures in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory. Bringing together long-buried historical information with English's own research in Havana—including interviews with the era's key survivors—Havana Nocturne takes readers back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders. English deftly weaves together the parallel stories of the Havana Mob—featuring notorious criminals such as Santo Trafficante Jr & Albert Anastasia—& Castro's 26th of July Movement in a riveting, up-close look at how the Mob nearly attained its biggest dream in Havana—& how Fidel Castro trumped it all with the revolution.

The years 1945-48 marked the peak of the Indonesian revolution, but they were also formative years for the state-labour relationship in modern Indonesia. Drawing on a wide range of historical sources, Jafar Suryomenggolo reconstructs labour's initial drive to form and orient unions during this critical period. The historical narrative captures early unions' nationalist spirit and efforts to defend members' socio-economic interests, and shows the steps taken by the labour movement to maintain its independence and build institutional capacity within the new Indonesian state. Organising under the Revolution challenges the prevailing assumptions that see labour movements as political arms of the post-colonial state. The author's conclusions provide a comparative lens for the study of labour movements in Southeast Asia, and developing countries in general.

In Empire's Violent End, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg and Bart Luttikhuis, along with expert contributors, present comparative research focused specifically on excessive violence in Indonesia, Algeria, Vietnam, Malaysia, Kenya, and other areas during the wars of decolonization. In the last two decades, there have been heated public and scholarly debates in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands on the violent end of empire. Nevertheless, the broader comparative investigations into colonial counterinsurgency tend to leave atrocities such as torture, execution, and rape in the margins. The editors describe how such comparisons mostly focus on the differences by engaging in "guilt ranking." Moreover, the dramas that have unfolded in Algeria and Kenya tend to overshadow similar violent events in Indonesia, the very first nation to declare independence directly after World War II. Empire's Violent End is the first book to place the Dutch-Indonesian case at the heart of a comparison with focused, thematic analysis on a diverse range of topics to demonstrate that despite variation in scale, combat intensity, and international dynamics, there were more similarities than differences in the ways colonial powers used extreme forms of violence. By delving into the causes and nature of the abuse, Brocades Zaalberg and Luttikhuis conclude that all cases involved some form of institutionalized impunity, which enabled the type of situation in which the forces in the service of the colonial rulers were able to use extreme violence.

These essays investigate institutionalized violence in New Order Indonesia and the ongoing legacy Suharto's dictatorship has conferred on the nation. The collection includes papers on East Timor, Aceh, Biak, the police, and the Indonesian military, among other topics.