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Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde #178
Paper Landscapes: Explorations in the Environmental History of Indonesia
Too much of what has so far passed for the 'historical background' to Indonesia's environmental problems has consisted of little more than thinly disguised backward projections of modern trends. The writers in this volume report on their own pioneer journeys into the paper landscapes of the colonial literature and archives in search of the real environmental history of Indonesia.
424 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
7 people want to read
About the author
Peter Boomgaard
24 books3 followersPeter Boomgaard was trained as an economic and social historian and obtained his PhD from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in 1987. He was Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), Leiden, and Professor (Emeritus) of Economic and Environmental History of Southeast Asia at the University of Amsterdam.
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September 20, 2017
Fish! Weather! Elephants! Tigers! Pepper! The sap from giant rainforest trees! Who knew history could be written about such things?
Paper Landscapes is an edited volume of essays that deal with various aspects of Indonesia’s environmental past.
Like Ends of the Earth, and many works in the field, the contributors to this volume come from a wide array of disciplines, and offer many different approaches to understanding the changes in the natural landscapes of Indonesia. The chapters in this book derive from papers originally delivered at an international workshop on ‘Man and Environment in Indonesia’ in June 1996. The thirteen writers in this book include historians, anthropologists, economists, rural development experts, and geographers, to name but a few.
Responding to what has been perceived as “thinly disguised backward projections of modern trends”, this work compiles works that are more historically and culturally contextualized. Examples of this include Michael Dove’s meticulous analysis of passages in the Hikayat Banjar to explore the development of the black pepper trade in seventeenth century Indonesia.
Despite its title, many chapters in the book actually examine trends, connections and crossings all across what is commonly understood as “the Malay World”, so that there are works that not only study the islands of Sumatra, Sulawesi or Java, but also Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo.
The book is not divided into distinct sections, although it is evident that the editors have clustered the works in some thematic order. Beginning with Brookfield’s “Landscape History”, examining broad patterns of land and vegetational changes over geologic timescales, the chapters progress to the impact of weather patterns and diseases on human communities, before turning to examine the interactions between humans and their natural environment, both floral and faunal.
Kathirithamby-Wells’ careful and illuminating study of “large mammal populations” on the Malayan peninsula offers a refreshing, qualitative alternative approach to understanding the changes in the population densities of animals like tigers, elephants and wild boar in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Later, Potter’s study of gutta percha in “the wider Malay world” offers a fascinating insight into the cultivation and trade of a globally exported commodity, originating almost exclusively from Southeast Asia, illustrating also the dependence of even modern societies upon the rainforest.
The imaginative ways in which the book’s writers utilize numerous sources to support their claims is also instructive. From Brookfield’s use of ancient pollen analysis to prove rice cultivation in certain areas, to Boomgaard’s and Reid’s leveraging of indigenous creation myths and taboos to suggest at certain general trends, the varied pieces of evidence (and their usage) underscore the need for historians (in general) to be innovative, careful and critical in their handling of sources.
Due perhaps in part to their diversity and various disciplinary foci, however, there is relatively little unity in diversity in this edited volume. Several chapters, such as Masyhuri’s study on the fishing industry in Java, or Boomgaard’s glancing survey of hunting and trapping in Indonesia, end abruptly despite promising articulations of their research findings. While it is clear that some effort had been made to cluster scholars’ works together loosely, the book’s editors could perhaps have devoted more space toward drawing these luminous, “extensively revised” but disparate works more tightly together. For example, it is puzzling that Boomgaard offers an introduction to the volume, but finishes the book on an open-ended note, with Cribb’s analysis of the colonial trade in birds of paradise serving as the book’s last chapter. It also remains somewhat unclear what the book’s title actually refers to.
In all, however, Paper Landscapes serves as an illuminating and exhilarating introduction into the possibilities of writing environmental history in Southeast Asia.
Paper Landscapes is an edited volume of essays that deal with various aspects of Indonesia’s environmental past.
Like Ends of the Earth, and many works in the field, the contributors to this volume come from a wide array of disciplines, and offer many different approaches to understanding the changes in the natural landscapes of Indonesia. The chapters in this book derive from papers originally delivered at an international workshop on ‘Man and Environment in Indonesia’ in June 1996. The thirteen writers in this book include historians, anthropologists, economists, rural development experts, and geographers, to name but a few.
Responding to what has been perceived as “thinly disguised backward projections of modern trends”, this work compiles works that are more historically and culturally contextualized. Examples of this include Michael Dove’s meticulous analysis of passages in the Hikayat Banjar to explore the development of the black pepper trade in seventeenth century Indonesia.
Despite its title, many chapters in the book actually examine trends, connections and crossings all across what is commonly understood as “the Malay World”, so that there are works that not only study the islands of Sumatra, Sulawesi or Java, but also Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo.
The book is not divided into distinct sections, although it is evident that the editors have clustered the works in some thematic order. Beginning with Brookfield’s “Landscape History”, examining broad patterns of land and vegetational changes over geologic timescales, the chapters progress to the impact of weather patterns and diseases on human communities, before turning to examine the interactions between humans and their natural environment, both floral and faunal.
Kathirithamby-Wells’ careful and illuminating study of “large mammal populations” on the Malayan peninsula offers a refreshing, qualitative alternative approach to understanding the changes in the population densities of animals like tigers, elephants and wild boar in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Later, Potter’s study of gutta percha in “the wider Malay world” offers a fascinating insight into the cultivation and trade of a globally exported commodity, originating almost exclusively from Southeast Asia, illustrating also the dependence of even modern societies upon the rainforest.
The imaginative ways in which the book’s writers utilize numerous sources to support their claims is also instructive. From Brookfield’s use of ancient pollen analysis to prove rice cultivation in certain areas, to Boomgaard’s and Reid’s leveraging of indigenous creation myths and taboos to suggest at certain general trends, the varied pieces of evidence (and their usage) underscore the need for historians (in general) to be innovative, careful and critical in their handling of sources.
Due perhaps in part to their diversity and various disciplinary foci, however, there is relatively little unity in diversity in this edited volume. Several chapters, such as Masyhuri’s study on the fishing industry in Java, or Boomgaard’s glancing survey of hunting and trapping in Indonesia, end abruptly despite promising articulations of their research findings. While it is clear that some effort had been made to cluster scholars’ works together loosely, the book’s editors could perhaps have devoted more space toward drawing these luminous, “extensively revised” but disparate works more tightly together. For example, it is puzzling that Boomgaard offers an introduction to the volume, but finishes the book on an open-ended note, with Cribb’s analysis of the colonial trade in birds of paradise serving as the book’s last chapter. It also remains somewhat unclear what the book’s title actually refers to.
In all, however, Paper Landscapes serves as an illuminating and exhilarating introduction into the possibilities of writing environmental history in Southeast Asia.
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