This book is both an introduction to contempoary life in Javanese society and an analysis of the emerging Javanese-Indonesia culture. Since the Javanese constitute half of the highly diversified population of two hundred million, it is only to be expeceted that they should have a major impact on the evolution of Indonesia as a modern nation-state. Their dominance in the country's affairs inevitably gives rise to various tensions, and not everbody agrees with the current evolution of the Javanese-Indonesia culture. This study analyses these developments, explaining cultural persistence and change in a historical perspective and on the basis of the auhor's twenty-five years of first hand observation.