Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965–1966 in Indonesia (Critical Human Rights)

Praise for Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965–1966 in Indonesia (Critical Human Rights)

“In compelling prose and with heartbreaking intimacy, Roosa offers the most important collection of case studies of the Indonesian massacres ever published. This is an essential, masterful, and devastating book for anyone who cares about the history and mechanics of human evil.”—Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence

“This is a rigorous study graced with absorbing and poignant stories. Roosa presents the subjectivity of the perpetrators, bystanders, resisters, and victims with a rare sense of subtlety. Attentive to the contingencies of history, he shows how nothing was inevitable in the tragic muteness of countless disappearances.”—Karlina Supelli, Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta

“Roosa portrays a tense political environment that gave no real hint of the killing that was to follow. This book represents a major breakthrough in presenting the killings in their immediate context and in the richness of its oral history data.”Robert Cribb, Australian National University

“In a meticulously researched and compellingly argued study, John Roosa presents, for the first time from up close, the history of Indonesia’s anticommunist massacres in 1965–1966. Through personal narrating, he details the experiences emerging from small, individual stories and connects them in an original attempt to help us understand this national event as an instance of genocide or mass atrocity against civilians. . . . By unearthing the details of the massacres, the book sheds light on one of the world’s most atrocious tragedies of the twentieth century.”—Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia