Watch this interview with Ian Burnet for the Thomas Keneally Centre of the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts.

 

Ian Burnet grew up in South Gippsland, Victoria, Australia and graduated with a degree in Geology and Geophysics from the University of Melbourne.

He first went to work in Indonesia in 1968 as a young geologist and became fascinated by the diverse cultures and rich history of the archipelago. He has spent thirty years, living, working and travelling in Indonesia.

Cloves and nutmeg originally only grew on a few tiny islands in Eastern Indonesia. Ian thought the story of the islands of Ternate and Tidore, and their effect on world history had to be told. After ten years researching and writing this story, it became the book Spice Islands which tells the history, romance and adventure of the spice trade over 2000 years. Spice Islands has received critical acclaim and been described as - “a wonderful book- a triumph of passion and scholarship”. 

It took another five years of research and writing to complete the book East Indies which was published towards the end of 2013. This book tells of the 200 year struggle between the Portuguese Crown, the Dutch East India Company and the English East India Company for trade supremacy in the Eastern Seas. It starts in Malacca, the major trading port of the 15th century, documents the foundation of Batavia (Jakarta) by the Dutch East India Company, andconcludes with the founding of the port cities of Singapore and Hong Kong in the 19th century. The book has been described as "a ripping historical yarn".

Archipelago - A Journey Across Indonesia was published in September 2015 to critical acclaim - "Time for a good travel book and none more engaging than Ian Burnet's new title".

His book Where Australia Collides with Asia - The Epic Voyages of Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and the Origin of On the Origin of Species was published in August 2017. A review reads "What Ian Burnet has achieved in his wonderfully illustrated and narrated book is to relate the important role the Indonesian archipelago has played in the intellectual history of the west". 

His book The Tasman Map tells the story of the first Dutch voyages to discover Australia from 1606 to 1644 and the resultant map which shows a recognisable outline of the north, west and south coast of Australia. A review states “Ian Burnet in this stunning volume brings alive the many voyages of discovery that linked the exploration and Dutch conquest of Indonesia to a growing awareness on the part of the Dutch of the great, but as yet unknown, land to the south”.

In his latest book Joseph Conrad’s EASTERN VOYAGES- Tales of Singapore and an East Borneo River he tells the story of Joseph Conrad’s sailing career on the three-masted clipper ships that once graced the world’s oceans and how Joseph Conrad worked his way up from an ordinary seamen to captain one of these magnificent vessels. Conrad loved the ‘mysterious East’ and his first books – Almayers Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Lord Jim and The Rescue were all set in Borneo and based on the people and places he encountered in his own voyages as first mate on a trading vessel based out of Singapore.   In the latter part of this book Ian Burnet has taken the liberty to place the parts of these first novels into their proper narrative sequence and focus on the back-story of his characters, which will make it easier for readers to discover or rediscover Conrad’s genius.

 

Ian organised sailing voyages around the Spice Islands in 2012, 2013 ,2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 for those interested in exploring the eastern archipelago, sailing in a traditional Indonesian wooden schooner (Bugis pinisi) which is now complete with en suite bathrooms and air conditioning.  The vessels sails to the islands where nutmeg and cloves originally grew, we visit the spice plantations as well as the historic forts that have been built by the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch traders who sought to monopolise the spice trade.

 

SingaporeHeritage4.jpg