Power and Knowledge in Southeast Asia: State and Scholars in Indonesia and the Philippines

Examining two state-sponsored history writing projects in Indonesia and the Philippines in the 1970s, this book illuminates the contents and contexts of the two projects and, more importantly, provides a nuanced characterization of the relationship between embodiments of power (state, dictators, government officials) and knowledge (intellectuals, historians, history).

Known respectively as Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (SNI) and the Tadhana project, these projects were initiated by the Suharto...