Thomas Lindblad is retired and doesn't have a desk at the university anymore. Please send an email if you want to contact him. The above mentioned telephone number is the number of the secretariat.

More information about Thomas Lindblad

Spreekuur / Hours

By appointment

Fields of interest

• Economic globalization
• Economic development and foreign investment in Southeast Asia
• Political history of Indonesia
• Political economy of Indonesia and Malaysia

Curriculum vitae

I am Swedish-born and studied political science (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, BA 1970), international relations (Columbia University, New York, MA 1972) and economics (University of Amsterdam, MA 1975, PhD 1982). Since 1975, I have been teaching economic history at Leiden University, from 1987 as Associate Professor, from 1999 also in the Department of Indonesian Studies at Leiden University. I was a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study (NIAS) in Wassenaar (11985/86, 1995), the Research School of Asian an Pacific Studies at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra (1994 and 2006) and the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden (2002-2006) and worked as a visiting professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Study in Seoul (1999) and the University of Nagoya (2002). As a co-promotor, I supervised nine PhD dissertations at Leiden University and three at other universities in the Netherlands (Radboud University at Nijmegen, Free University of Amsterdam, University of Utrecht).

Research

My original specialization was the history of international trade in Northern Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in particular the trade between the Dutch Republic and the Baltic. Results of this research included my PhD dissertation and a source publication entitled Dutch Entries in the Pound-toll Registers of Elbing 1585-1700 [= Rijks Geschiedkundige Publica­tiën 225] (The Hague: Institute of Netherlands History, 1995). Since the mid-1980s, my research has increasingly focused on the modern economic history of Southeast Asia, in particular Indonesia. Activities included the organization of the first intenational conference on Indonesian economic history held in Indonesia (Jakarta 1991) and the execution from 1995 to 2000 of a large-scale research and teaching project to further Indonesian economic history in Indonesia, sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). Representing the national graduate school N.W. Posthumus Institute of Economic and Social History, I co-ordinated two consecutive internationalization projects sponsored by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (N.W.O.) concerning East Asian and West European economic development (1999-2001, 2002-2005). From 2002 to 2006, I was as a senior researcher in the national research programme ‘Indonesia Across Orders’ ( Van Indië tot Indonesië), executed by the Netherlands Institute of War Documentation (NIOD). Since 2008, I am co-ordinating an internationalization project on economics, politics and social change in immediate post-independence Indonesia, sponsored jointly by N.W.O. and the Australian Research Council (ARC) and startng in 2009 I will be co-ordinating an N.W.O. research programme entitled ‘State and Economy in Modern Indonesia’s Change of Regimes’.

Major publications

Apart from my PhD dissertation, my six major books include three monographies and two collective works: 

Bridges to new business; The economic decolonization of Indonesia (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2008).

The emergence of a national economy; An economic history of Indonesia, 1800-2000 (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2002) [co-authored with Howard Dick, Vincent Houben and Thee Kian Wie].

Coolie labour in colonial Indonesia; A study of labour relations in the Outer Islands, c. 1900-1940 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999) [co-authored with Vincent Houben and others].

Foreign investment in Southeast Asia in the twentieth century (London: Macmillan, 1998). 

Between Dayak and Dutch;. The economic history of Southeast Kaliman­tan, 1880-1942 (Dor­drecht/­Providence: Foris, 1988).

The title of my PhD dissertation was: Sweden’s trade with the Dutch Republic, 1738-1795 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1982).

The first edition of my textbook entitled Statistiek voor historici (Muiderberg: Coutinho) appeared in 1984.

Other collective works since 2000

• Asian growth and foreign capital;. Case studies from Eastern Asia (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2002).
• Roots of violence in Indonesia; Contemporary violence in historical perspective (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002) [co-edited with Freek Colombijn].
• Fondasi historis ekonomi Indonesia (Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2002) [Indonesian translation of Foundations of a national economy in Indonesia, 1890s-1990s (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1996)].
• Macht en majesiteit; Opstellen voor Cees Fasseur bij zijn afscheid als hoogleraar in de geschiedenis van Indonesië aan de Universiteit Leiden (Leiden: Opleiding Talen en Culturen van Zuidoost-Azië en Oceanië, 2001) [co-edited with Willem van der Molen].
• Sejarah ekonomi modern Indonesia; Berbagai tantangan baru (Jakarta: LP3ES, 2000) [Indonesian translation of New challenges of the modern economic history of Indonesia (Leiden: PRIS, 1993)].

Selected articles since 2000

• ‘Survey of recent developments’, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 43-1 (2007) 5-31 [co-authored with Thee Kian Wie].
• ‘Indonesia and China today; New challenges with a long history’, Journal of Developing Societies 23 (2007) 369-392.
• ‘Technological development and economic growth in Indonesia and Thailand since 1950’, ASEAN Economic Bulletin 23 (2006) 303-324 [co-authored with Ewout Frankema].
• ‘Structural characteristics of Japanese investment in Indonesia’, Economic and Finance in Indonesia/Ekonomi dan Keuangan Indonesia 53 (2005) 195-214.
• `Van Javasche Bank naar Bank Indonesia. Voorbeeld uit de praktijk van indonesianisasi’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 1 (2004) 28-46.
• `Business responses to crisis in Indonesia; The 1930s and the 1960s’, Australian Economic History Review 43 (2003) 169-182.
• `The importance of indonesianisasi during the transition from the 1930s to the 1960s’, Itinerario 26-3/4 (2002) 51-71. - `Korean investment in Indonesia; Survey and appraisal’, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 36-1 (2000) 167-184.

In my spare time I wrote three novels that were published as respectively De jonge reiziger (Leidschendam: Quist, 2006), De jonge docent (Leidschendam: Quist, 2008) and De jonge geleerde (Leidschendam: Quist, 2009).