Thursday, November 23, 2017

Sydney Morning Herald Book Review


Sydney Morning Herald Book Review

“Rockefeller & the Demise of Ibu Pertiwi review: Mystery and politics in W Papua”

  • Cameron Woodhead

Rockefeller & the Demise of Ibu Pertiwi

Kerry B. Collison

Sid Harta, $24.95

Kerry B. Collison brings a deep knowledge of Indonesian history and politics to his latest novel. Using as a hook the mysterious disappearance of Michael C. Rockefeller in 1961, the novel soon immerses us in a multi-faceted history of West Papua (Irian Jaya), a former Dutch colony annexed by Indonesia in the 1960s. It's a geopolitical thriller that includes every conceivable perspective and stakeholder, from remote mountain villages to the United Nation, from international mining companies and the Indonesian military to the Papuan independence movement. Rockefeller's vanishing gets an imaginative explanation, as events conspire to ignite the possibility of war between Australia and Indonesia (in a case of East Timor revisited on a larger scale) over the question of self-determination. Perhaps a touch scattered as fiction, but sure to intrigue anyone interested in geopolitical strategy and the history of our region

1 comment: