April 8 (Tuesday) at 4:00 PM – Prof. B. Galdikas will discuss Indonesian History at VMU Science and Study Center (V. Putvinskio St. 23-103, Kaunas).
Unlike Lithuania whose empire „building” in the middle ages arose out of a poverty of natural resources for lucrative trade with wealthier groups and relative geographic isolation from the currents of European history, Indonesia was an island chain of diverse cultures encompassing hunters and gatherers, slash and burn horticulturists, complex irrigated agricultural systems at the crossroads of trading networks involving Arab, Chinese, and Indian states, as well as Western European nations. Indonesia’s wealth was based on the most fertile soils in the world and an equitable climate that allowed for triple cropping a year with agricultural Java as one of the most densely populated places on earth even now. Ecology and geography determined each nation’s fate with Lithuania a small modest European nation and Indonesia a rising but relatively humble, increasingly wealthy Asian superpower, both nations with no imperial ambitions finding their way in a world where might still makes right.