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W I N T E R I S S U E 3 0
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HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WITH VIKING'S RESIDENT
HISTORIAN PROGRAM?
A university colleague referred me to Viking in late 2017. I had initially
been a bit put off by the reputation of some cruise lines. However, I did
my due diligence on Viking and discovered that it was entirely
different—with interested and interesting guests, a well thought-out
education program and elegant, comfortable facilities. After going on
board the Viking World Cruise in 2018, I was sold.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR INTERESTS AND AREAS
OF SPECIALISATION?
My professional work has focused on the history of Indonesia. I am
fascinated by the processes which turned an archipelago of diverse
cultures and peoples into a single, modern nation—albeit one that still
faces many challenges. But have many other culture curriculum
interests. With two colleagues, I wrote a book on the cultural history of
the orangutan to examine the ways in which people have been
intrigued by the close resemblance between humans and orangutans
over the last four centuries.
WHAT THREE HISTORY BOOKS WOULD YOU RECOMMEND
TO OUR READERS?
Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church
in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died by Philip Jenkins.
This is one of those fascinating books that uncovers a world that I had
no idea about until I read it. Forests of Ash: An Environmental History by
Tom Griffiths. It is a great story of the way that Australians have coped
with living in a land of bushfires. East West Street by Philippe Sands. It is
an intriguing book, part autobiographical, that traces the life stories of
three important thinkers on international law and genocide back to the
city now known as Lviv (in Ukraine) but once called Lemberg, when it
was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Meet one of our resident historians, Robert Cribb
