A Brief History Of Bali: Piracy, Slavery, Opium and Guns: The Story of an Island Paradise (Brief History of Asia Series)

Bali is being rapidly transformed by the tourism industry and will see a lot of cultural change driven by Western visitors over the next few decades. I was on vacation in Bali and got this book to learn more about this beautiful island. Most of the information were gathered from the colonial-era Dutch archives. The book primarily focuses on the last 500 years of the island, but has a short introduction about the earlier centuries when the first peoples landed. It was definitely an interesting read.

An old-fashioned but quite interesting book about Balis history. Seen a bit from a European perspective, but perhaps it is because of the lack of sources.

Great perspective on Bali and food recipes!

A cogent presentation of Bali in brief; a great first book on Bali; highly recommended. Nice inclusion of historical photographs as well. As anticipated by the title, the book included a too-brief 17-page epilogue of Bali in the Twenty-First Century. This was rather one-dimensional, lacked substance and came across as a hurried after-thought. Hoping Tuttle will sponsor works in many countries that focus on the most recent 25 years of history in each country - these would be excellent companion volumes to their "Brief History' series.

Brilliantly written history and so interesting, unfortunately showing how little human kind learns from history. We could have paradise on earth if we would learn from it. I admire the Balanese people with their calm, having been visiting the beautiful island several times

Book was a bit slow at the start, but became much more interesting

A really interesting and absorbing history of this beautiful island.

Informative, fun, loving it.

Nice into but a little long winded and dull