The Dutch Overseas Empire, 1600–1800 by Pieter C. Emmer and Jos J. L. Gommans

Abstract

This book is the English translation, and slightly updated version, of Rijk aan de Rand van de Wereld (Amsterdam, 2012), the greatest accomplishment of which is its integrated treatment of the Dutch activities in the Americas, Africa, and Asia; the last monograph that presented a global overview of the Dutch overseas was Charles Boxer’s The Dutch Seaborne Empire (New York, 1965). Several studies of the Dutch activity in either the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean, and of the organizational and maritime aspects of individual Dutch state-chartered companies, have appeared since Boxer’s book, but no global overview.The book’s approach “highlights comparison with other European empires as well as the interaction between the Dutch Republic and its overseas territories in both the metropolis and the different contact zones” (5). It is comprised of three parts. The first focuses mainly on the cultural, economic, religious, social, scientific, and artistic exchanges between the Dutch and “the World.” The second and third focus, respectively, on the Dutch operations in the Atlantic and those in the Indian Ocean world. The authors include no references to primary archival sources, instead basing their book on secondary literature. Since many Dutch historians write about Dutch history in English, the added benefit of this English version is marginal, but some readers who cannot read Dutch might benefit from its review of the literature.The third part of the book is successful and innovative in its emphasis on the Dutch in (present-day) India and Sri Lanka over the more traditional treatment of (present-day) Indonesia. The parts of the book that discuss the Dutch in the Atlantic, however, rely on outdated literature, are often repetitive, and contain several falsehoods. The most surprising reference is to C. M. Schulten, Alles over Nederlandse expansie in Latijns Amerika: Brazilië: 1624–1654 (Bussum,1968), a book that has failed to make any historiographical impression and is hardly academic (191, n. 4). The section about the Americas has only one reference to a publication within the last twenty-five years, despite a surge in writings about the Dutch in the Atlantic since 1999.1 The repetitiveness, such as that the Dutch did not want their slaves to convert to Protestantism, was already noted in a review of the Dutch version of book, but it remains in the English version (159 and 163).2 The most egregious mistake is the description of the tenure of Johan Maurits as Governor-General of Dutch Brazil as “a one-man administration” (44); in reality, he was but one vote in a council of five (and a tie-breaking vote at that). Moreover, the council continued to govern during the months that he was on military missions. Without the second part, the book would have probably been better (but evidently less global).The first part of the book is the most ambitious, successfully combining findings from economic, intellectual, cultural, and social history to tell how the Dutch related to the world and the world to the Dutch. The conclusion that the effects of these global exchanges “were much more limited than is generally assumed,” however, is underwhelming (120). It would not do interdisciplinarity justice to describe (this part of) the book as interdisciplinary. The book is a literature review that draws from different historical sub-disciplines. The parts of the book about the Dutch in the Atlantic have serious shortcomings, but if we ignore them, the rest of the book is a welcome and interesting overview of the Dutch in Asia and the influence of the world on the Netherlands.