What did a man have in mind when he marked his footprints on the islands he must conquer? 'I' -the main character- chose to surrender in the faces of grass, forest, waves and sand. To "the narrator", those islands -as fertile as a womb of a young woman - stole his identity and turned him into a complete stranger.

Published in 1952, this fiction was considered as masterpiece of one of the most important writers of the modern Dutch literature era, Albert Alberts. In 1939, he was posted in Sumenep Madura East Java and lived a paradise-like life. His dream turned into nightmare in 1942, he was captured by the Japanese soldiers. Transferred from one cell to another, he almost lost his life. He became free when the Japanese fled from Indonesia. After a year of uncertain life during the power-shift from Dutch to England, he decided to return. In the Netherlands, he published 'The Islands'. He became a journalist and an editor of a local newspaper in 1953-1964, following the same path Hemingway once took, and wrote mostly about Indonesian politics. In 1975, Alberts received a prestigious Constantijn Huygens Prize award.

Via 'The Islands' we can look into the life of a conqueror, on how he scrutinized the islands to exploit and on how he deconstructed his values along with his interactions with the locals. From these short stories, we can look on how a simple man tried to cope his loneliness, on how the ugliness of his exhaustion transformed into a weave of reminiscences.

His personal touches is obvious in Alberts' ignorance to write complete his sentences with 'subjects' or 'predicates'. He didn't care to place the islands in the structure of reality. Only in one of 11 short stories, did Alberts state the island's name (and it's an imaginative one). Alberts let his readers to freely interpret the context of time and space. Therefore, the editor completed Alberts' work by giving 9 pages of footnotes, 7 pages of preface and 21 pages of introduction.

Makassar Sailing is Collins' 3rd book, after Twin Flower, an autobiographic tale about Bali's culture and customs and the author's tragic love affair with a young Balinese girl. East Monsoon was his second, in which he told about the building of his own prahu. Makassar Sailing follows on it, dealing with life in the East Indies (Celebes to be exact). It is well-written and lively, full of interesting legends of these people, and complete with maps and photographs. Collins' good humour and his skill as storyteller make this a most recommendable book.

And that's a complement in itself.
For the short term visitor, this book will be a good read.
It has lots of nice photos, background information and good descriptions of the major tourist areas of Ambon, Lease, Ternate and Banda.
Unfortunately information on other islands (even on rather easily accessible Seram or Halmahera) is extremely limited, and is usually supplemented by lengthy references to old literature like the Malay Archipelago by Wallace, or even descriptions of places based upon hearsay. Needless to say, lots of that is wrong.
This may just be a blessing in disguise however, as most remoter islands of Maluku are ill-equipped to cater for tourists, and those determined to visit such places will find discovering them on their own all the more exciting.
I'd still recommend this book for anyone interested in Maluku, but would warn against expecting too much from it!
In fact, general guidebooks to Indonesia by Lonely Planet and Rough Guides (especially) contain just as much info on the sights and facilities of Maluku as this book, and are certainly more up to date.
But if you find all these too limited, you will just have to wait and see things for yourself!

This well-illustrated book on Borobudur serves only as a light introduction to a more in-depth study on the Buddhist temple. Each chapter spans two-pages long, and considering that the book measures only 9x6," each chapter goes by quickly. Think "Borobudur in 10 minutes."

Because the author has perhaps chosen to limit each chapter to two pages (including the photographic illustrations), he could only go so far on the number of symbolism in the temple's reliefs and the history of the temple. Still, the book provides a light and wonderful introduction to the majestic Prayer in Stone" by Soekmono, Casparis, Dumarcay (ISBN 2878680049), and "Borobudur" by Nou and Frederic (ISBN 0789201348.) Both are filled with photographs, but the latter has more text and a catalog of all the reliefs in the temple.

"The Mysteries of Borobudur" happens to be part of a series in Periplus' "Discover Indonesia." One might want to check out (ISBN 962-593-196-1,) and Balinese Architecture (ISBN 962-593-194-5,) both by Davison and Granquist. END

This book is interesting from a historical point of view. It follows missionary practise in Irian Jaya as it was before the war, and as seen through the eyes of a young boy. The author was himself in such a position. The story follows Jim and his father as they set out for a trip into the interior. They meet with all sorts of events on the way. A better translator might have done more justice to the book, but even so it is an interesting story, and as a young boy I enjoyed it very much.

As I know, this paperback is the first publication about Post Soeharto period which written by foreign (non-Indonesian) authors.

Probably because of I am not a politician, I'd never heard about all authors. But my hunch tell that mostly come from Murdoch University - Western Australia, which have several specialist researches about Indonesia instead of have some well-known Indonesian experts there. So the authors could ask something, consult or gather feedbacks, opinions, and advices from them directly.

So this book is good enough to learn how Indonesia could be look from overseas

Renee Denis came from a fascinatingand unusual family, which no doubt explains her choice of a lifestyle for herself. Her book helps one to understand why the Polynesian extended family overcomes the problems you might think would exist with so many single mothers (including the author). An amazingingly interesting life!

This was a decent book. Several of the paragraphs were repeated and there is a lot of copy lifted from newspapers but Diane Francis interviews a lot of people in her own right. Perhaps she relies one family (the Chornys) to heavily for quotes. This is what you're going to get, however, when you rush a book to market so fast after the event. I would hardly call this an amateurish book. I think the previous reviewer is expecting a lot when they complain that this book wasn't exciting enough. After all, this is a business book and we're talking about core samples and security regulations here. Sometimes the facts can bog down the story. This isn't an Elmore Leonard novel although it probably could turn into one with a few minor changes and additions to the characters. I was a little disappointed with the title because it should really have been called "Fool's Gold." In any case, it's a decent read. I would have given four stars if there weren't except for the poor editing.

I did not follow the bre-x story as I do not invest in shares. I decided to read this book because in an earlier book I read, "Asian Eclipse", mention was made of the bre-x story and it seemed interesting to me. I was not dissapointed.

The Bre-x story revealed a lot about the greed of people and perhaps how people of the mining industry work. They depend a lot on guesswork.

It also shows how sloppy work done by analysts can result in a financial disaster. Analysts are supposed to be professionals and they are highly paid too. In the Bre-x story, it is revealed that some analysts can be easily influenced by weak evidence and are not as professional as they are made up to be. These sloppy professionals not only spoil the name of their profession, but clearly, do not deserve the high pay they demand.

The Bre-x story was in part fueled by the flawed recommendation of the analysts. This leads one to consider if financial disasters of the past are due in some ways to such sloppy professionals. Another train of thought is whether we should continue paying good money to such so-called professional analysts or consultants.

I like the book because it covered the whole story of bre-x and the reading was easy and captivating. It also showed issues of greed and insights into the world of finance and mining.

However, I was dissapointed in several parts of the book when the author repeated herself in the book. The other thing was that the author was not very good at telling the story when simultaneous events were happening. She has a tendency to back-track the story. As such, the story was not smooth in its delivery.

Overall, I will still recommend the book for those who are interested in the mining industry, financial scandals and tales of greed. Maybe, for those who are interested in the Soeharto family will also pick up the book. The family was featured in about a third of the book. The greed of the family was clearly shown in the book.

This saga of the greatest gold mining fraud in history is terrific. The narrative really does read like a novel, I couldn't put it down! How many non-fiction books can one say that about? Diane Francis has done an outstanding job of bringing the tale of the small Calgary junior mineral exploration company and it's officers to life: David Walsh, a failed penny-stock promoter, John Felderhof, a Dutch born globe trotting Canadian mineral exploration geologist and his colleauge and former co-worker Filipino geologist Michael de Guzman. Bre-X shares made a round trip from a penny stock listed on the Alberta Stock Exchange to a split adjusted price of C$286.50, for a market value of C$6.8 billion, at it's peak. Investors, both small individual and large institutional (including the mutual fund giant Fidelity), lost billions when the facts came to light about the company's Busang gold "deposit" in the Indonesian jungles of east Borneo, which was claimed to be the biggest in the world. After the news came out the stock tumbled on the Toronto Stock Exchange, causing their computer trading systems to lock up because of the huge volume of sales, to just a few cents a share days later before being delisted and worthless. Bre-X claims of finding the gold discovery of the century were discredited when U.S. mining firm Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold found "only insignificant amounts of gold'' in the core samples that it took as part of it's due diligence as Bre-X's partner to develop the deposit. Further audits found "virtually no possibility of an economic gold deposit." When company geologist Michael de Guzman was on the way to discuss Freeport's findings he comitted suicide by jumping out of a helicopter. Shortly afterward de Guzman's lieutenant, Cesar Puspos, and their Filipino geological team disappeared. I don't want to give away too much of the book, it is excellant and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in mining scams or investment swindles.

Any book about East Timor should dedicate a chapter to the Portuguese foreign policy about this issue. It was the East Timorese and the Portuguese who kept this question alive when nobody wanted to know. Therefore, explaining and understanding East Timor in the last 25 years must include Portugal. Unfortunately, this is not the case. On the other hand, with one or two exceptions, the chapters do not bring any relevant new information. If you have an average knowledge about this issue, this book will not bring you much insight. Definitely, this is not a must.

Any book about East Timor has to dedicate a chapter to the Portuguese foreign policy about this issue. As far as everybody knows, Portugal was the former colonial power wasn't it? Otherwise, explaining and understanding East Timor in the last 25 years will be missing an important actor. Unfortunately, this is the case. On the other hand, with one or two exceptions, the chapters do not bring any relevant new information. Definitely, this is not a must.

Unfortunately, I found this book to be NOT very authentic as to the Balinese experience either from the native or tourist side. The plotline and dialogue are laughable and the characters very unlikeable and too broadly drawn.

Sorry, it just seemed like a second rate screenplay. For how bad it was, it was suprisingly stonger on its coverage of Bali than you would expect, but in the end, it indulged in a tone too much like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

An insightful look at Bali and the Balinese people before thetourist boom. Anyone who has been to Bali or who plans to travelthere should read this book to begin to understand the culture of Bali and how the Balinese balance their their beautiful, unique culture with the demands placed on them by tourism on their island. This is a novel, yes, but anyone who reads it will recognize the realities.