J.C. van Leur and the Problematic Origins of “Autonomous” Indonesian History

The main purpose of this article is to criticize J.C. van Leur's reputation as a Dutch historian who had been very vocal in criticizing his predecessors regarding Indonesian history. For modern Indonesian historians, van Leur is seen as a pioneer to reverse the perspective of a centric Western perspective to an Indonesian centric point of view. The Western centric point of view places Indonesian history as an extension of the Dutch history in Europe so that it is clear that Indonesian history does not have autonomy. However, van Leur's critique is true for the history of Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period, not for critiques of the pre-colonial period. To critically review van Leur's conception of Indonesia's historical autonomy, this article will take a close look at the intellectual trends that Van Leur responded to. This article argues that van Leur's research is very deductive by making the claim that the picture of the past trading community in Southeast Asia is proving to be misguided. This article finds that one of van Leur's weaknesses is that he conducts historical research that is thesis-driven, not research-based, and his belief in a thesis has prompted him to impose totality on Western categories of Southeast Asian history. The use of Max Weber's model in analyzing history actually makes van Leur's analysis of Southeast Asian history not even fully autonomous