Revolusi by David Van Reybrouck

*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize* A true masterpiece of narrative history showing Indonesia’s epic revolution to be the great turning point of the 20th century

A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world.

On a sunny morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and announced the birth of a new nation- Indonesia. For three and a half centuries, its people had been subject to Dutch colonial rule. It would take another four years of guerrilla warfare and resistance – the ‘Revolusi’ – to finally win their freedom, blazing a trail that would reshape the world.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck’s superbly woven narrative is alive with human detail at every turn, showing Indonesia’s struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century.

About the Author: David Van Reybrouck (Author)
David Van Reybrouck is the author of Congo- The Epic History of a People, which won twenty prizes, sold over half a million copies and has been translated into a dozen languages. His book Against Elections has been translated into more than twenty languages and has led to the trial use of participatory democracy in numerous countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. His plays Mission and Para have been performed across Europe, and his novel Zinc won the European Book Prize 2017. Revolusi was first published in the Netherlands, where it was a major bestseller. David Van Reybrouck has been described as ‘one of the leading intellectuals in Europe’ (Der Tagesspiegel) and ‘one of the most brilliant European intellectuals of the moment’ (Le Soir). He is Belgian, writes in Dutch and is based in Brussels.

22 May 2025
 

Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by David Van Reybrouck ISBN 9781529931525