Adrian Vickers' Indonesia blog

I was excited to receive the new book by Michael Hitchcock and I Nyoman Darma Putra, Tourism, Development and Terrorism in Bali (Ashgate 200&). This is more than a great overview of Bali in the last two decades, it includes some really good new material on internal conflicts and the tension between Balinese self-perceptions and the way Bali is viewed within Indonesia. Although there is some unevenness in the chapters—probably the product of having two writers working at a distance—overall it provides a comprehensive account of the perils of Bali's development processes. Most importantly, we are finally seeing more works come out with Balinese authors or co-authors, reversing the earlier trend of us Westerners speaking on behalf of Balinese.