David Reeve

David Reeve has been visiting Indonesia for fifty-three years, as a diplomat, researcher, historian, language teacher, and program manager. In the 1980s, he was a founding lecturer in the Australian studies program at the University of Indonesia. In the 1990s, he was Resident Director in Yogyakarta for ACICIS, the program that places Australian students to study in Indonesian universities. He has worked in a dozen Indonesian universities. He publishes on Indonesian history, language, and culture, and on Australian Indonesian relations. He is retired from UNSW and is completing a biography of the major Indonesian historian, Onghokham.

David Reeve reviews ‘A Short History of China and Southeast Asia: Tribute, trade and influence’ by Martin Stuart Fox

September 2003, no. 254 • 01 September 2003

What interesting times we live in. Indeed, they are likely to become more interesting. One of the major issues for the new century is China’s emergence as a great power. How will China deal with the rest of the world? Should China be contained, confronted? How will its enhanced power be shown? How will governments wrestle with that power? Martin Stuart-Fox outlines this problem from the multipl ... (read more)

David Reeve reviews 'South-East Asia: A political profile' by Damien Kingsbury

June 2001, no. 231 • 01 June 2001

How different South-East Asia looks in 2001, compared with just four years ago. The economic crisis of 1997 gave the region a terrible shock. There is an entirely new country, Timor Loro Sa’e. Indonesia, that former bastion of stability and economic powerhouse, is now racked with unrest. It may well no longer exist in its present form a few years from now. The Philippines has just ejected anothe ... (read more)

David Reeve reviews 'Young Soeharto: The making of a soldier, 1921–1945' by David Jenkins

April 2022, no. 441 • 23 March 2022

At last we have it – the much-anticipated first volume of the definitive biography of President Soeharto (1921–2008). It is the culminating work in the distinguished career of Australian journalist David Jenkins. This startling volume, covering the years 1921–45, will appeal to the general reader and the Indonesia specialist. It has been described as ‘truly extraordinary’ by the late Ben ... (read more)