David Reybrouck

*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024* *Shortlisted for the Cundill Prize*A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that changed the course of the 20th century.''Astounding . . . history at its best'' Yuval Noah Harari''Utterly compelling . . . astonishing'' Financial Times''Superb'' GuardianOn a sunny morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and announced the birth of a new nation: Indonesia. For three and a half centuries, its people had been subject to Dutch colonial rule. It would take another four years of guerrilla warfare and resistance – the ‘Revolusi’ – to finally win their freedom, blazing a trail that would reshape the world.Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck’s superbly woven narrative is alive with human detail at every turn, showing Indonesia’s struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century.*A Financial Times, Evening Standard, History Today and Prospect Best Book of the Year*‘A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece’ Sebastian Mallaby‘Masterly . . . compelling . . . convincingly argues that Indonesia in itself represents a global crossroads, one of the most important in modern history’ Elizabeth Pisani, The Times‘We learn something utterly fascinating on every single page’ Evening Standard, Books of the Year‘The story of [Indonesia’s] formation is delivered in a manner that genuinely seems unsurpassable’ History Today, Books of the Year‘Revolusi briskly ushers Indonesia onto the centre stage of modern history’ Pankaj Mishra‘With rare narrative brilliance, Revolusi gives us a history at once vast and intimate, a history in colour’ Laksmi Pamuntjak‘A magisterial and gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now’ Jason Burke‘A wonderful and important book’ Peter Frankopan‘Majestic and beautifully written’ Times Literary Supplement‘Immensely readable’ Adam Hochschild, Atlantic‘An electrifying narrative’ Tunku Varadarajan, Wall Street Journal‘The definitive account of a neglected epoch’ Economist‘Masterly’ J M Coetzee

A small book with great weight and urgency to it, this is both a history of democracy and a clarion call for change. "Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck, regarded today as one of Europe's most astute thinkers. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change.