Drought, famine & Japanese occupation killed 1.8 million people in Java 1944-45 & reduced births by 1.5M. Population declined by 4%, according to a new OA paper by Pierre van der Eng in the Asia-Pacific Economic History Review. Further population losses 1946-49 were of comparable size! https://doi.org/10.1111/aehr.12287
🔴 📖 🎙 Podcast with Roger Crowley, author of “Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World”
“Roger Crowley, in his new book Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World, covers six decades of exploration, conflict and conquest, starting from the Portuguese capture of Malacca in 1511 to the Spanish founding of Manila and the start of the galleon trade in 1571.”
The placenta has always been seen as something mystical.
In #Australia, if it was believed that, if the mother had launched the afterbirth into the water, the baby would have been a good swimmer.
Batak¹ people from Sumatra, #Indonesia, buried it under the house; it was believed to be the newborn's sister or brother.
Similarly, Baganda² from #Uganda believed that the placenta was a doppelgänger of the child – this is similar to the #Irish (or #British, in general?) concept of fetch.³
Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by David van Reybrouck
In this vivid history, renowned scholar and celebrated author of Congo David Van Reybrouck captures a period of extraordinary tumult and chaos to tell the story of Indonesia’s momentous revolution, known as the “Revolusi.”
📖 The book "Timor-Leste’s Long Road to Independence", edited by Zélia Pereira and Rui Graça Feijó, includes a chapter authored by Pedro Aires Oliveira where the historian discusses the reasons that allowed for the retention of Portuguese sovereignty in Timor until 1974. 🇹🇱
This was SO good. The stories are still rattling around in my head.
I think it'd have resonance even for someone without connections to that environment & society. I grew up in #Indonesia and my father (not openly until much later) was bi and had homosexual relationships while (and after) we lived there (wasn't someone asking about #familySecrets recently? Well there you go).