Kajian Malaysia, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2014

"Neatly edited by two of its convenors, Douglas Kammen and Katharine McGregor, this volume provides compelling reading by bravely tackling head-on what most innocent Indonesians would probably prefer to just gloss over for either fear or shame.

"Neatly edited by two of its convenors, Douglas Kammen and Katharine McGregor, this volume provides compelling reading by bravely tackling head-on what most innocent Indonesians would probably prefer to just gloss over for either fear or shame.

Consisting of ten chapters generally organised around different geographical locations in which the macabre events amounting to the "ideological cleansing" of members and sympathisers of Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) in 1965–1968 took place, this book dwells on a particularly painful episode of modern Indonesian history which implicates directly or indirectly a slew of stakeholders whose influence on the national political landscape was to extend beyond those years.

In putting forward their arguments, the researchers rely on extensive primary data, as collated from extensive interviews with both victims and perpetrators of the grim purges that transpired during the three-year period."