Based on close reading of historical documents--poetry as much as
statistics--and focused on the conceptualization of technology, this
book is an unconventional evocation of late colonial Netherlands East
Indies (today Indonesia). In considering technology and the ways that
people use and think about things, Rudolf Mrázek invents an original
way to talk about freedom, colonialism, nationalism, literature,
revolution, and human nature.
The central chapters comprise vignettes and take up, in turn,
transportation (from shoes to road-building to motorcycle clubs),
architecture (from prison construction to home air-conditioning),
optical technologies (from photography to fingerprinting), clothing and
fashion, and the introduction of radio and radio stations. The text
clusters around a group of fascinating recurring characters representing
colonialism, nationalism, and the awkward, inevitable presence of the
European cultural, intellectual, and political avant-garde: Tillema, the
pharmacist-author of Kromoblanda; the explorer/engineer IJzerman; the
"Javanese princess" Kartina; the Indonesia nationalist journalist Mas
Marco; the Dutch novelist Couperus; the Indonesian novelist Pramoedya
Ananta Toer; and Dutch left-wing liberal Wim Wertheim and his wife.
In colonial Indies, as elsewhere, people employed what Proust called
"remembering" and what Heidegger called "thinging" to sense and make
sense of the world. In using this observation to approach Indonesian
society, Mrázek captures that society off balance, allowing us to see it
in unfamiliar positions. The result is a singular work with surprises
for readers throughout the social sciences, not least those interested
in Southeast Asia or colonialism more broadly.