In the more than two decades since the overthrow of the authoritarian New Order regime (1966–98), Indonesian studies has seen the publication of dozens of books revisiting the personalities, politics, and violence of that formative period. Some readers might wonder, then, whether there is a need for yet another book on the era and its actors. But David Jenkins has written just a book, the first in a three-volume biographical opus intended to examine the New Order's paramount politician, President Muhammad Soeharto. The book draws on Jenkins's in-depth interviews over more than four decades with hundreds of Indonesian politicians, military commanders, and business leaders, as well as interviews with former imperial Japanese officers stationed in Indonesia during the Second World War. It also draws extensively on historical archives in Indonesia, the Netherlands, Japan, Britain, and the United States. The result is a book of rare richness, one that sheds light...
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