Content area
Full text
ABDURRAHMAN WAHID: Muslim Democrat, Indonesian President. By Greg Barton. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2002. 414pp. US$19.95, paper. ISBN0-8248-2622-1.
Abdurrahman Wahid (popularly known as Gus Dur), former controversial president of Indonesia and former long-serving leader of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world's largest Muslim organization, renowned as a political and religious reformer and as a public intellectual and social commentator, is a more than fitting subject for a biography. Abdurrahman, beloved by millions and the bane of his opponents, is an enormously important figure in contemporary Indonesia and thus a better understanding of him can only facilitate a fuller understanding of the world's third largest nation. That he is also well known, if not infamous (especially in Indonesia), for his eccentricities, his humour and his outspokenness is a spicy bonus for his biographer and for the book's readership.
As a leading...