1982/01/01 by Denys Lombard, Anthony Reid, A. G. Reid · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Asian Studies and History
paper · doi:10.2307/3632197
crossref issued 1982/01/01 · crossref published 1982/01/01 · crossref published-print 1982/01/01 · openalex publication_date 1982/01/01 · crossref created 2007/03/10 · crossref deposited 2018/05/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29
In the Malay peninsula and northern Sumatra, colonial rule embraced an extravagant array of sultans, rajas, datuks and uleebalangs, traditional rulers whose support was important to the smooth running of the administration. In Malaya, the traditional Malay elite served as a barrier to revolutionary change, and the ruling class survived the transition to independence, but in Sumatra the ruling class was destroyed in a wave of violence and killing in 1945-46. Anthony Reid's The Blood of the People explores the circumstances of Sumatra's sharp break with the past during this dramatic revolution. Events in northern Sumatra were a prelude to Indonesia's national revolution, normally viewed from the perspective of Java, and anticipated some of the broader issues of that conflict. For some residents of the archipelago, the revolution was a popular, peasant supported movement that liberated them from foreign rule. Others, though, felt victimised by a conflict created by outsiders. Java, with a relatively homogeneous population, passed through the revolution without fundamental social change. In Sumatra, though, a new identity overrode the ethnic categories, and the ethnic competition, of the past.