The Dark Side of Paradise

Reviews / Votes

The Dark Side of Paradise is an effective attempt to put the politics back into Bali's twentieth-century history. With a sure mastery of both Indonesian and Dutch sources, Robinson analyzes the class tensions between aristocrats and commoners during the late colonial period.

(Times Literary Supplement) Robinson's incisive, well-written work demolishes the fiction of the 'peaceful Balinese' that pervades academic and popular literature, and, for the first time, places modern political history directly into the middle of Balinese scholarship.

(Choice) Exhaustively documented.... This book is an important achievement. Refreshingly free of fashion and jargon, the book also provides insights of comparative importance into the ways in which elite rivalries intensify factionalism in society.... A remarkable work of political history. It deserves to be read by all students of Southeast Asia and anyone interested in the causes of modern political violence.

(American Historical Review) Robinson's work reaches beyond history, amply illustrating the possibilities of what might be termed a 'comparative historical sociology' approach.

(Indonesia) This is a brilliant book that must be read by anybody interested in modern Indonesia.

(Journal of the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology)