Stories from Medan, Volume 2

Plantations, Politics, and Colonial Life
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-981-9289-81-3
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan

Buch, Englisch, 690 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm

This book continues to explore Medan’s history, combining archival research with engaging narratives to recreate the city’s colonial past and the lives of its people. Through 35 richly illustrated chapters, it examines the rise of the plantation economy, the experiences of contract labourers, the emergence of nationalist movements, and the development of science, medicine, commerce, arts, and literature. Drawing on historical archives from the Netherlands, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Switzerland, and other countries, the book brings together rare photographs, historical illustrations, newspapers, memoirs, and interviews, including first-hand accounts of former indentured workers. It recounts the lives of influential figures alongside those of ordinary people who shaped Medan’s history. By connecting local experiences with broader economic, political, and cultural developments, the book reveals how Medan became one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the Dutch East Indies. Historical place names and contemporary language further bring readers closer to this remarkable past.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Minasny, Budiman

Buiskool, Dirk Aedsge

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part I: Plantations and Coolies   .- Chapter 1: The Dark History of Contract Labourers in Sumatra’s Plantations.- Chapter 2: The Millions from Deli: Profit, Penal Sanction, and Plantation Brutality.- Chapter 3: Castles that the Coolies of Deli Built.- Chapter 4: AVROS:  Rubber, Dactyloscopy, and Oil Palm.- Chapter 5: Stories of the three ex-plantation workers.- Part II: Paths to Indonesia Raya.- Chapter 6: Tan Malaka in Deli.- Chapter 7:   The Development of the Press in Medan.- Chapter 8: Medan Town Council, Democracy, and the Fragile Political Progress in the Early 20th Century.- Chapter 9: From Medan to Revolution: Amir Sjarifoeddin and Soetan Sjahrir.- Chapter 10: Doctors of the Nation: Medicine, Modernity, and Nationalism.- Chapter 11: Tengku Luckman Sinar and Revolutionary East Sumatra.- Chapter 12: Chinese Politics, Faith, and Revolution in East Sumatra.- Part III: Power, Violence, and Social Control.- Chapter 13: Venduties, Policing, and the Making of Authority.- Chapter 14: The Dark Side of Medan.- Chapter 15: Amok,  When Reason Collapsed.- Chapter 16: Preman, from freelancers to militias.- Chapter 17: Westerling’s Counter-Terror and Terror in Medan.- Part IV: Colonial Ethnography, Healthcare, and Science.- Chapter 18: Colonial Science and Racial Imagination.- Chapter 19: Medicine, Disease, and Science in Colonial Medan.- Chapter 20: Agricultural Research in Deli: The Contributions of Albert Frey-Wyssling, Jan Henri Druif, and Tan Hong Tong.- Part V: The City in Motion.- Chapter 21: Entertainment in Colonial Medan.- Chapter 22: Cinema Paradiso: The Making of Medan as a Modern Entertainment City.- Chapter 23: The Sporting Life of Colonial Medan.- Chapter 24: Reverend William Taylor Ward and Colonial Tensions.- Chapter 25: Epperlein and Tip Top lunchroom war.- Part V: The City in Motion.- Chapter 21: Entertainment in Colonial Medan.- Chapter 22: Cinema Paradiso: The Making of Medan as a Modern Entertainment City.- Chapter 23: The Sporting Life of Colonial Medan.- Chapter 24: Reverend William Taylor Ward and Colonial Tensions.- Chapter 25: Epperlein and Tip Top lunchroom war.- Part VI – Art and Literature.- Chapter 26: Carl Josef Kleingrothe, Capturing Colonial Life in Deli.- Chapter 27: Mata Hari, A Legend Shaped in Medan.- Chapter 28: Medan Through Foreign Eyes.- Chapter 29: From Jungle to Literature: The Lives of Madelon Székely-Lulofs and László Székely.- Chapter 30: Dutch Women Literary Voices in Early Medan.- Chapter 31: European Artists and the Visual Imagination of Deli.- Chapter 32: Amir Hamzah, Roman Medan, and the Making of Modern Indonesian Literature.- Chapter 33: A City in the Storm: Pa. Singaram and Brian Aldiss in Wartime Medan.- Chapter 34: Daughters of Kesawan.- Chapter 35: The Blue Mountains of the Bukit Barisan: Rudy Kousbroek and Sitor Situmorang on Sumatra.

Über Autor(innen)

Budiman Minasny is a professor of soil science at the University of Sydney, with a keen interest in history. Originally from Medan, North Sumatra, he has authored several scholarly articles on the region's people and their historical narratives. In Soil Science, Budiman is considered a leading authority in soil mapping, has authored more than 200 academic papers, and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Dirk Aedsge Buiskool is a historian who lectured in Groningen and at the University of North Sumatra. He contributed to different historical journals and published the award-winning book De reis van Harm Kamerlingh Onnes. He received his PhD from Utrecht University with the thesis “Prominent Chinese During the Rise of a Colonial City: Medan 1890–1942”.