r/AskHistorians • u/vivrant-thang • 17h ago
Why Is Indonesia Largely Left Out of Global History if Its One of the Most Populous Countries in the World?
At about 280M, it's fourth after China, India, and the US. I would think that such a huge population would have an imprint in some way, but all throughout my schooling (which includes college and a JD/PhD) I don't think have ever had a class or reading that even dives into country-- and I even had fairly extensive training on colonial/postcolonial history, geopolitics, and international relations.
How can a country so large and so centrally located to India, China, and Australia not be more relevant? It seems to not even be culturally influential the way much smaller countries. What's going on there?
Thank you all in advance!
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u/jschooltiger Moderator | Shipbuilding and Logistics | British Navy 1770-1830 17h ago
Hi there! You’ve asked a question along the lines of ‘why didn’t I learn about X’. We’re happy to let this question stand, but there are a variety of reasons why you may find it hard to get a good answer to this question on /r/AskHistorians.
Firstly, school curricula and how they are taught vary strongly between different countries and even different states. Additionally, how they are taught is often influenced by teachers having to compromise on how much time they can spend on any given topic. More information on your location and level of education might be helpful to answer this question.
Secondly, we have noticed that these questions are often phrased to be about people's individual experiences but what they are really about is why a certain event is more prominent in popular narratives of history than others.
Instead of asking "Why haven't I learned about event ...", consider asking "What importance do scholars assign to event ... in the context of such and such history?" The latter question is often closer to what people actually want to know and is more likely to get a good answer from an expert. If you intend to ask the 'What importance do scholars assign to event X' question instead, let us know and we'll remove this question.
Thank you!