This book had its origin in research which i carried out in Indonesia in the 1970s on agricultural taxation, and on the development of irrigation. in studying these aspects of the agricultural economy, i became increasingly aware of the importance of the colonial legacy for subsequent change in the Indonesian agricultural sector. while it is now quite widely appreciated that the dutch colonial administration in the first four decades of the tweintieth century was more concrned wiyh the economic development of smallholder foodcrop agriculture than were colonial goverments in many other parts of Asia, the full implications of this concern for agricultural development in independent Indonesia have not yet been adequately explored. This study is an attempt to study the economic development of the Indonesian agricultural sector in an historical perspective, using the rich store og economic and demographic data published in the colonial era, as well as the more recent statistical evidence published by the Central Bureau of statistics and other agencies of the Indonesian goverment.