in the early 1960s when he actually wrote the book. Despite the great depression which Indonesia underwent in 1930 40, world war II, the military occupation by Japan, the war for national independence, and other major transformations, Geertz sees no basic change in the framework of the Javanese economy except a decline in the efficiency of the estate sector. He goes on to say that"involution, too, has proceeded relentlessly omward, or perhaps one should say outward, for a process which began to be felt first in full force mainly in the sugar regions is now found over almost the whole of Java" [11, p. 126l, and he indicates that"a stage of near catastrophe" [ii, p. 129] has been reached.