Robert Edward Elson is a historian, author and academic regarded as an authority on

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

n history, with his biography of former President Suharto and works on the

cultivation system The Cultivation System () was a system of forced labor used to grow cash crops to pay taxes and for export. It was Dutch government policy from 1830–1870 in its Dutch East Indies colony (now Indonesia), requiring a portion of agricultural prod ...

in Colonial

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

(the latter frequently being described by Elson himself as "very long and very boring books") considered leading works on their subjects. He also teaches on an undergraduate level about

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

in the region. He has taught at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

; and at

Griffith University Griffith University is a public university, public research university in South East Queensland on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of Australia. The university was founded in 1971, but was not officially opened until 1975. Griffith ...

. Elson has many contacts with other leading scholars of his field, including names such as

Benedict Anderson Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson (August 26, 1936 – December 13, 2015) was an Anglo-Irish political scientist and historian who lived and taught in the United States. Anderson is best known for his 1983 book ''Imagined Communities'', which e ...

and

Anthony Reid Robert Anthony Maxwell Reid is a British racing driver, born on 17 May 1957 in Glasgow, Scotland. He was educated at Loretto School in Edinburgh. He lives in England. Formula cars He spent many years in Formula Three and other junior single-s ...

, as well as with certain political leaders of the region - such as

Anwar Ibrahim Anwar bin Ibrahim (; born 10 August 1947), also known by his abbreviation as DSAI and PMX, is a Malaysian politician who is the 10th prime minister of Malaysia since 2022. A member of the People's Justice Party (Malaysia), People's Justice P ...

. Elson was elected Fellow of the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australi ...

in 1995.

Selected works

*Elson, R E. 2008. ''The Idea of Indonesia''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Elson, R E. 2001. ''Suharto: A Political Biography''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Elson, R E. 1997. ''The End of the Peasantry in Southeast Asia: A Social and Economic History of Peasant Livelihood, 1800s-1990s''. London: Macmillan. *Elson, R E. 1994. ''Village Java under the Cultivation System, 1830-1870''. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. *Elson, R E. 1984. ''Javanese Peasants and the Colonial Sugar Industry: Impact and Change in an East Java Residency, 1830-1940''. Singapore: Oxford University Press.

References

External links

Elson's page at the University of Queensland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elson, Robert Historians of Southeast Asia Academic staff of the University of Queensland Writers from Brisbane Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Australian historians Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities Academic staff of Griffith University