This is a textbook designed for the serious student who wishes to investigate the history of Indonesia since the coming of Islam. It is intended to meet a need found by those whose study has been hampered by the large number and specialised nature of the major works on the subject, the high proportion of these that are written in foreign languages and the difficulty of gaining access to some of them. Students have also found that the existing literature sometimes overemphasises either colonial aspects or the exoticism of Indonesia, and fails to provide a clear chronology within which to orient their study.

This book therefore aims to provide a basic but detailed narrative of Indonesian history since c.1300, an introduction to the major issues of the period and a guide to the most important published secondary sources (or primary sources where no adequate secondary sources exist). My aim is, thus, to facilitate students’ progress to more advanced levels of study. The need for such a book has been evident for some time, but it is only recently that the study of Indonesian history has reached a sufficient level of coverage and sophistication over the whole period for such a textbook to be possible. Significant gaps remain in our knowledge, but the major lacunae have now been investigated.