From Rebellion to Riots examines contemporary violence in one of Indonesia's most heterogeneous provinces, West Kalimantan. It documents how a communist rebellion in the 1960s and low-level conflicts in the decades that followed led to major ethnic clashes in the late 1990s, when an indigenous empowerment movement took shape and local elites sought to capture the benefits of decentralization and democratization.

Situated within the sphere of influence of the old Inca capital, Cuzco, they represent soundings of resistance and rebellion, backed by years of archival research.

This important collection includes overview essays by Donald Crummey and Ralph Austen, and fifteen case studies set in the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zaire, Namibia, Mozambique, Algeria, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.

This paper presents three cases in which African women, although lacking formal political power in their societies, organized in defiance of male and colonial authority. The three cases are: the Harry Thuku Disturbances in Kanyah in 1922; the Anlu Uprising in the British Cameroons in 1958-59; and the women's War or Aba Riots in Nigeria in 1929. Although the three examples presented are from different parts of Africa and from different time periods, there are several commonalities including: 1) the adaptation of a traditional form of sanction; 2) relatively egalitarian social structure with emphasis on achieved status; 3) traditionally well-established rights and areas of jurisdiction for women; 4) traditions of collective action; and 5) the failure of male leadership to confront an unpopular colonial government.