On a hot August afternoon in 1811 an army of 10,000 British redcoats splashed ashore through the muddy shallows off Batavia (Jakarta) to conquer the Dutch colony of Java. They would remain there for five turbulent years. Told in full for the first time, this is the story of how the British attempted to bring the full force of European colonialism to a tropical island where Muslim sultans claimed descent from Hindu gods. It is also the story of the man who presided over that attempt – Thomas Stamford Raffles, destined for future fame as the founder of Singapore.
Drawing on both British and Javanese archive sources, the book explores the bloody battles and furious controversies that marked British rule in Java, and reveals Raffles – long celebrated as a liberal hero and a visionary, The last colonialist it's OK to like – in a shocking new light, showing how he crushed dissent, looted palaces, and incited massacres to further his own insatiable ambitions. The story of the British Interregnum in Java has never before been told in full, and the book features the dramatic Battle of Batavia, the sinister British expedition to Palembang, the 1812 sacking and looting of Yogyakarta, and various fights between soldiers and civilians, buffaloes and tigers, and Englishmen and Javanese. The crux of the story is the clash between nascent European colonialism, and the old courtly culture of Java.
