This monograph offers a thought-provoking thematic examination and chronological survey of the early modern Dutch overseas colonial expansion and downfall in Asia and in South Africa, among other institutional frameworks through the VOC, stressing its colonial character rather than company and trade features.

This monograph offers a thought-provoking thematic examination and chronological survey of the early modern Dutch overseas colonial expansion and downfall in Asia and in South Africa, among other institutional frameworks through the VOC, stressing its colonial character rather than company and trade features.

The Dutch Diaspora is a comprehensive and personal study of the former colonial empire of the Netherlands. The Netherlands is considered one of the most successful societies and at one point was the world's largest empire_stretching from Japan to the United States. The author, Howard Wiarda, who grew up in western Michigan and is himself of Dutch descent, combines thorough scholarship with first-hand experience of travels to the far-flung former colonies. The study analyzes how colonies reacted to the ideological beliefs implanted by the Dutch settlers and how those colonies evolved in terms of cultural, religious, and political beliefs. For example, the Dutch in the seventeenth century brought Calvinism to South Africa and entrepreneurialism to New Amsterdam and Cura_ao and in the nineteenth century supported slave plantation systems in Indonesia and Suriname, but as time passed the evolution of the colonies was telling. The United States outgrew Great Britain in wealth and power, but while Calvinism declined in the Netherlands it remained vibrant and progressive in the American Midwest. In many ways, the former colonies adapted to modernization better than the mother country. The Dutch Diaspora is an insightful and accessible study of colonialism useful to upper-level undergraduates and all students and researchers of Dutch history.

Being "Dutch" in the Indies portrays Dutch colonial territories in Asia not as mere societies under foreign occupation but rather as a "Creole empire". Most of colonial society, up to the highest levels, consisted of people of mixed Dutch and Asian descent who were born in the Indies and considered it their home, but were legally Dutch. They played a major role in the plantation industry, commerce, local government and even early anti-colonial nationalism. This old world came to an end after World War I, when people born in Europe began to dominate government and business, and Indonesian nationalism rejected the Creole notion of imperial belonging.

Gale Researcher Guide for: The Dutch Colonial Empire is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

In 1724-1726, the Dutch clergyman François Valentyn published a 5,000-page account of the Dutch East India Company’s empire. It was the first and, for a long time, the only survey of the Dutch establishments in Asia and South Africa. Shaping a Dutch East Indies analyses how Valentyn composed this work and how it largely determined the Dutch perspective on the colonies in Asia until the 1850s. It seeks to highlight both the great diversity of knowledge gathered in Valentyn’s book and its geographical spread, from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan, with a focus on the Indonesian archipelago. Huigen’s book is the first in-depth study of Valentyn’s work, which is a foundational text in the history of Dutch colonialism.