Professor Supomo was for many years one of Indonesia's foremost scholars and by far its leading constitutional authority, having served as Minister of Justice in several cabinets. His death in 1958 was a great loss to Indonesian government and legal scholarship. The Provisional Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia was only one of Professor Supomo's many important published writings, the main body of which dealt with Indonesian customary law. This book, however, is undoubtedly the most significant source on the Constitution of 1950. This Constitution remained operative for approximately seven years after the formation of the Unitary State in August 1950, being fully and officially superseded only in July 1959 with the return to the Constitution of 1945. Professor Supomo's commentary on the individual articles forms the most important analysis and interpretation of the 1950 Constitution to have appeared. Those interested in Indonesia's political development should therefore find this translation useful. - George McT. Kahin, March 10, 1964

This work is unique, since it is the first comprehensive bibliography on Indonesian Law listing materials in various languages, including Russian, Japanese and Chinese. The bibliography is divided into various fields of law and each chapter starts with an introduction on the related field. The growing (economic) importance of Indonesia and the increasing trade relations with this country call for an instrument on how to find the law in Indonesia. This bibliography will fill this gap as it includes all material on Indonesian law in a non-Indonesian language which has been published since 1949.

The official monthly record of United States foreign policy.

This is an intensive study of Indonesian politics from the attainment of full independence in December 1949 to the proclamation of martial law in March 1957, and President Soekarno's subsequent establishment of "guided democracy". It is intended as a contribution to the ongoing discussion of democracy in the new states of Asia and Africa, of the ways in which Western political institutions are transformed when employed in non-Western social settings, and of the obstacles to be overcome if such institutions are to operate in consonance with the authority systems of new nations and with their solution of economic and administrative problems. Now brought back into print as a member of Equinox Publishing's Classic Indonesia series, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy is considered to be the definitive study of Indonesia in the 1950s and will be of great interest to the growing number of social scientists concerned with the pre-industrial nations and in particular with their efforts to use and adapt Western political institutions. This is a solid and scholarly account, but, writing on the basis of much personal observation, Dr. Feith manages to present his material in such a way that readers with no previous background in the subject will be able to follow the book almost as easily as will specialists. HERBERT FEITH (1930-2001) became familiar with Indonesia during 1951-53 and 1954-56 when he was an English Language Assistant with the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Indonesia. A citizen of Australia, he received an M.A. degree from the University of Melbourne in 1955 and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1961. He was a Research Fellow in the Department of Pacific History, Australian National University, from 1960 to 1962 and was Chair of Politics at Monash University from 1968 until 1974.