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Bali at War: A History of the Dutch-Balinese Conflict of 1846-49. By ALFONS VAN DER KRAAN. Victoria: Monash University Paper No. 34. Amazon Press, 1995. x, 240 pp.
This account of Dutch entanglement with the rulers of Bali in the mid-nineteenth century is an able retelling of the old David and Goliath tale, with documentation; an informative, readable book which should be made compulsory reading for any would-be Napoleon or Lyndon Baines Johnson. In 1834, the Dutch government in Java became concerned because an Englishman, George King, had established himself in Lombok to take advantage of the island's export rice trade, which had grown in importance with the rise of world food prices and the introduction of the so-called Cultivation System, which favored the production of coffee, sugar, and indigo over rice, in Java. The Dutch feared that King's involvement, and subsequent trade between Lombok and Singapore, would lead to the intervention of the English in the Indonesian Archipelago. The feuding of the Balinese Rajas encouraged Batavia to believe...