Introduction Available to Purchase

Starting with a cartoon depicting two stock figures—a “primitive” witch doctor and a witch as known from popular culture—the introduction presents magic as an encounter between an imperial project and those it subjected. It then expounds upon the book’s conceptual framework, focusing on translation’s multiple meanings; describing the magic of the moderns as marked by what it is not (including not real); and explicating the theoretical relevance of science studies. After considering colonial encounters in general and the significance of anthropology and developments in metropolitan cultures in the nineteenth century, it then addresses why specific features of Dutch history, and Dutch rule over Indonesia, make that empire especially illuminating. The introduction ends with an overview of what follows.