This monograph is a detailed examination of the development of scientific research and institutions in Indonesia since the nineteenth century. The author, Andrew Goss, explores the development of botany and its proponents in the Dutch and independent Indonesian governments, and asks why scientists there never achieved global status for their research and discoveries. He argues that the lack of recognition lies in their research being subsumed to the larger bureaucratic needs and policies of the government, which ultimately dampened any spirit of independent inquiry or curiosity. Science was to serve the state, and its limited goals. To support his argument, Goss explores a number of diverse sources from the Netherlands and Indonesia, and uses the Buitenzorg (Bogor) Botanical Gardens as a backdrop to explore the histories of scientists and administrators, from colonial-era naturalist Franz Junghuhn to scientists at the modern Institute of Scientific Research (better known by its Indonesian acronym, LIPI). The result is a detailed, fascinating account of science and scientists in Indonesia and their milieu.

The floracrats is divided into seven mostly chronological chapters, in addition to an introduction and conclusion. In each chapter Goss takes the reader through a distinctive era of scientific research, such as attempts to improve the yield of quinine-producing trees in the 1850s and 1860s, which is the focus of chapter 2, or how the Department of Agriculture during the early twentieth century ignored traditional Javanese agricultural techniques and quickly became a tool through which the government gained control over economic development. Throughout, the overarching theme of missed opportunities or limits placed on research is brought into particular focus, as the ‘apostles of Enlightenment’ (a phrase he frequently uses to refer to scientists) are subsumed to larger governmental needs or initiatives. Science becomes bureaucratised at the Botanical Gardens, the Department of Agriculture, and later LIPI, until any form of applicable research is lost or subsumed into rational and modernist state agendas. Goss's account idealises the possibility of the scientific community's ability to pursue unencumbered research, as well as to spread Enlightenment principles throughout Indonesia, while also tracing the many instances when government meddling — from both the colonial metropole as well as Batavia/Jakarta — hindered the ability for free-ranging research and initiative to take place. Ultimately, Goss bemoans how science in Indonesia has been a tool of the state instead of civil society since the colonial era.

By idealising the possibilities of scientific research and civil society, Goss successfully highlights material that requires scholars and students to focus on a number of issues and ideas, in particular, the use of and approaches to scientific theory and knowledge by both modern governments and colonial regimes to achieve their agendas of control. Its boldness makes this an important book, one that should be read by anyone interested in colonial history, science and modern governmental systems in not only Indonesia, but all of Southeast Asia.