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Village Java Under the Cultivation System, 1830-70. By R. E. ELSON. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1994. xxiv, 522 pp. $34.95.
As Bob Elson acknowledges in the Preface, his work on village Java from 1830--70 is an ambitious undertaking not only on account of the vast quantities of Dutch-language archival material he has had to consult, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because the Cultivation System has always been a highly controversial subject, arousing strong passions in defense and in opposition. Elson, however, has not allowed himself to be intimidated by these difficulties, but with considerable perseverance and courage he has tackled his topic head-on, to produce an incisive, wide-ranging and quite balanced reassessment of this crucial phase in the economic history of Java.
Logically constructed, the book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Elson sets the scene for his discussion of the Cultivation System by looking at village Java in the opening decades of the 19th century, a time when in marked contrast to the situation today, the island was sparsely populated with peasants living in small, often quite isolated villages. The author takes issue with the persistent misconception of the Javanese village as an undifferentiated, self-sufficient and self-contained unit, arguing instead that...