One hundred and sixty years ago a young Englishman founded a private raj on the coast of Borneo. The world he created eventually took in a territory the size of England, its expansion campaigns paid for in human heads. Here, polite Victorian conventions coexisted tenuously with one of the most violent cultures on earth, often with startling results: pockets of tenderness and extreme brutality appearing where least expected. Into this world flowed a small tribe of adventurers, fugitives, criminals, and saints-- the madly talented and simply mad. And the women followed: wives and would-be wives, spinster nursemaids and heartless schemers, the rigidly virtuous and the virtually desperate. And always, the children, innocents too often the victims of an elemental nature both lush and deadly. Kalimantaan is the story of this world, these people. But the deeper story resides in the realm of the heart. It is about love in absurd conditions, the tenacity of it as well as our ability to miss it repeatedly and with perverse genius.

The Ecology of Kalimantan is a comprehensive ecological survey of one of Indonesia's largest and most diverse islands. This book presents a complete summary of our current scientific knowledge about Borneo including the rainforest and riverine habitats that are endangered by logging and industrial development, along with a discussion of land use patterns and current problems. Kalimantan is the Indonesian portion of the huge island of Borneo. Kalimantan has played a key role in Indonesia’s economic development and is a major earner of foreign revenue due to the island's rich natural resources: forests, oil, gas, coal, and other minerals. In this book the authors argue that Kalimantan can be developed, but within tight ecological constraints and with great care. This book remains a standard reference for scientists, anthropologists, writers, and anyone interested in the region.

In recent studies of Indonesia's regional politics one important aspect has largely been neglected - the role of the local aristocracies which dominated many of the regions outside Java from the precolonial period through to the formation of the independent Republic of Indonesia in 1949. In his work Burhan Magenda has begun to remedy this neglect. He has studied the aristocracies in various regions of the Outer Islands from the colonial period through into the New Order government of President Suharto. In covering their history he has examined the strategies used by the local aristocrats to survive and attempt to continue their domination of political power in their regions. The focus of this present monograph is East Kalimantan, where the local aristocracy was commercial in nature, tracing its origin back to the establishment of a "spice trade" route in the sixteenth century. The decline in the nineteenth century of the main harbor principality of Borneo, Banjarmasin on the south coast, opened the way for other states on the island to play a greater role, in particular the sultanate of Kutai in eastern Borneo. Burhan Magenda's well documented study opens a new perspective of fundamental importance to our understanding of both the past and current political and economic development of East Kalimantan and of its relationship with the central power in Jakarta. It provides an illuminating analysis of strategies by which members of the aristocracy have succeeded in surviving under widely varying conditions. Clearly, despite the challenges they have encountered over the past 45 years, these aristocrats have shown a surprising political resilience. - Audrey Kahin Ithaca, August 1991

This general bibliography on West Kalimantan contains 1855 references concerning monographs and periodical articles and 50 concerning bibliographies. They are arranged in broad subject categories, with subdivisions. The introduction i.a. contains background information on the region and its inhabitants. The subject categories are: 1) General works and articles; 2) Exploration and travels; 3) History; 4) Natural sciences; 5) Technology; 6) Economy; 7) Humanities ( subdivided as follows: cultural and physical anthropology, government, education, health, missiology, demography, language and literature); 8) Museums; 9) Chinese. The bulk of the references are in Dutch, covering the period 1823-1960. An author- and title index has been added.

Since the late 1960s the Indonesian state of East Kalimantan has witnessed a marked increase in the impact of human activities chiefly commercial logging and agricultural exploitation. Located on the island of Borneo, East Kalimantan also was subjected to prolonged droughts and extensive wildfires in 1982-83 and 1997-98 that were linked to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. The changes in the rainforest ecosystem in East Kalimantan during this 15-year cycle of severe ENSO events are the subject of this book. With an eye toward development of rehabilitation techniques for sustainable forest management, the authors examine possible interactive effects of drought, fire, and human impacts on the flora and fauna of the area.

The Beauty Of Kalimantan Island That Indonesian Children Need To Know is a glimpse of the beauty ofKalimantan Islandin terms of its location, history, economy, in habitants, tourism objects and culinarydiversity.Hopefully, one day, after the children become adults, they will love, care for and take careof their nation even more.