Susie Protschky is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia -- .
'It has taken historians a generation or two to come to terms with empire. Historians who lived during the age of empires tended to put the term imperialism in the too-hard basket. Those who lived through the end of empire appropriately, for the main, took the side of anti-imperialist nationalists. Susie Protschky's Photographic subjects is at the forefront of new studies of imperialism. While not doubting its moral illegitimacy, she explains how the Netherlands' colony of the East Indies imagined itself in relation to the Dutch monarchy. This is a subtle and far-sighted book, analysing photography in relation to royalty in order to show how empire worked. The visual binding of the colony to the 'mother' country was, as she shows, carried out through an array of imagery that celebrated devotion to the absent ruler. Peace and war, tradition and modernity provided a range of sights revealing the nature of colonial subjecthood. This is an essential book for understanding modern Indonesian history.' Adrian Vickers, Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Sydney -- .