Overview

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.

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9789004524989

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Siegfried Huigen is professor of Dutch Literature at Wrocław University (Poland) and visiting professor of Dutch Literature and Cultural History at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). He has published extensively on the history of colonial knowledge in Asia, Southern Africa and East Central Europe. He recently published East Central Europe between the Colonial and the Postcolonial in the Twentieth Century (2023) with Palgrave as co-editor.

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