Robert Edward Elson is professor of South-East Asian History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, having previously taught at Griffith University.

Elson is regarded as an authority on Indonesian history in particular, with his biography of former President Suharto and works on the cultivation system in Colonial Java (the latter frequently being described by Elson himself as "very long and very boring books") considered leading works on their subjects. He is also engaged in teaching about nationalism in the region at an undergraduate level.

Elson has many contacts with other leading scholars of his field, including names such as Benedict Anderson and Anthony Reid, as well as with certain political leaders of the region - such as Anwar Ibrahim.

References

• Elson, R E. 2001. Suharto: A Political Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Elson, R E. 1997. The End of the Peasantry in Southeast Asia: A Social and Economic History of Peasant Livelihood, 1800s-1990s. London: Macmillan.
• Elson, R E. 1994. Village Java under the Cultivation System, 1830-1870. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
• Elson, R E. 1984. Javanese Peasants and the Colonial Sugar Industry: Impact and Change in an East Java Residency, 1830-1940. Singapore: Oxford University Press.

External links

• Elson's page at the University of Queensland