"A thought-provoking study... Recommended reading for anyone who studie this period of Indonesian history."
Tineke Hellwig, Pacific Affairs "As no other book has done, this one conveys the feel and flavor of modernity as it took root in the early twentieth-century Indonesia."
James R. Rush, American Historical Review "A striking and deeply engaging historical study... In tracing this history, Rudolf Mrazek takes ... Read morethe reader on a journey, sometimes strange, through the jungles, laboratories, houses, trains, and latrines of late-colonial life. He also brings to life a cast of historical characters ... who used everything from toilets to airplanes as tools for articulating and reflecting upon what it meant to be modern in the Indies... Mraze develops his theoretical insights with a light hand through the telling of an original history that takes surprising and quirky turns."
Joshua Barker, Technology and Culture Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony is a wonderfully moody book. Moody, because it aims at capturing the aura of the Dutch East Indies in the last seventy-five years of colonial rule almost as much as it attempts to tell a critical, historical story. Wonderful, because it succeeds at this project better than any other book that I have read about this particular time and place. One feels as if time travel has been accomplished by the time that the last page is reached... We do not so much analyze the world of this Dutch colony from the nineteenth century into the early twentieth century as we live in it for three hundred pages... It really should be read by anyone who cares about Indonesia."
Eric Tagliacozzo, Journal of Asian Studies Show Less