This study deals with the political history of the Indonesian province of West Sumatra and the Minangkabau people from the late colonial period up to the present, focussing on the course and degree of their integration into the contemporary Indonesian state. The book provides a local perspective on the growth and development of the nationalist movement in Indonesia, the struggle for independence, and the trauma involved for West Sumatra in adapting to an Indonesian state based on very different concepts of government than those that animated the anticolonial struggle in the region. It also helps understand the backgrounds of the recent violent insurgence in several parts of the Indonesian archipelago against the rule of the Javanese-controlled central government.