提起印尼政治，学者们谈的都是雅加达的腥风血雨，大城市的世事变迁。即便一些不安于谈论政治中心的学者，讨论的也是宗教冲突、族群政治，再不然就是讲巴布亚、亚齐等地的分离运动。感喟于先辈及同僚们对印尼有如此多维的研究和认识，同时总觉得缺了些什么。究竟什么是印尼“外岛政治”的常态?在笔者看来，苏拉威西是研究印尼“外岛政治”的理想实验室:离中心不远不近，民族宗教构成足够多元，对中央政府大多言听计从......总结起来，苏拉威西的政治没有鲜明特点，基本上不对中央政治产生重要影响。纵然，印尼政治的藏经阁在爪哇，但经文在各地的念法却形形色色。几次访谈后，笔者发现印尼人自己对本国的行政区划和地方政府架构也不是特别清楚，对近年发生的一些变化更是知其然而不知其所以然。本文仅做纯技术性的现象描述，不进行任何学术思辨与创新。

People often see the origins of communist movements in Southeast Asia and the region’s overseas Chinese community as closely intertwined. This perception is evident in the cases of densely Chinesepopulated areas such as Malaya and Siam (Thailand), as well as places like Vietnam and Cambodia, where China’s influence has been historically strong in both political and cultural domains. Admittedly, it is very convenient to connect many Chinese-involved communist activities in Southeast Asia to the emergence of the communist party in China, but the simplistic argument – that Southeast Asia imports communism from China – is severely problematic. While overseas Chinese...

Kris Alexanderson’s Subversive Sea is the newest addition to the growing scholarship on the twentieth-century Dutch empire. Adopting a fresh approach, this groundbreaking work examines the transoceanic aspects of Indonesian anticolonialism by examining the shipping networks stretching beyond the geographic boundaries of the metropole and colony. Based on her solid archival work, careful reading of existing literature, and well-structured analysis, Alexanderson demonstrates how the “oceans’ permeable boundaries created a simultaneous liberating and threatening maritime spatiality” and that “the maritime world is not a liminal space but an active political arena” (p. 27). Specifically, she points out Dutch shipping companies “connected disparate bodies of water into intertwined transoceanic networks” and played a “unique role in navigating interwar power struggles between imperial hegemony and anticolonialism” (p. 25). By “repositioning colonial Indonesia to a sub-imperial center,” Subversive Sea reveals that the interconnected maritime networks were not only critical in defining colonial structure within the colonial state but also reflected “fundamental differences between terrestrial and oceanic characteristics particular to the interwar Dutch empire” (p. 2).

The past few years have seen a growing number of scholarly works on British operations in Southeast Asia and their relationships with local resistance in World War II. Particularly intriguing is the mysterious last-minute deal struck between the British in Malaya and the Chinese-dominated Malayan Communist Party, or MCP, before the Japanese takeover...