Shaping a Dutch East Indies : : François Valentyn's VOC Empire.

• Superior document: Verhandelingen Van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Series ; v.315
• Author: Huigen, Siegfried.
• Place / Publishing House: Boston : : BRILL,, 2023.; ©2023.
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Verhandelingen Van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (380 pages)

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Describing imperial space -- Lobbying for a Bible translation in 'low' Malay -- The Valentyn case : scholarly authorship at the beginning of the eighteenth century -- Natural history for liefhebbers in Valentyn's description of animals from Amboina -- 'Dutch power in those territories' : historical representation in Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën -- Antiquarian ambonese : Valentyn's comparative ethnography and ethnology -- 'This business of our nation' : the questionable conduct of the Dutch in Japan -- 'Waste land' into 'earthly paradise' : the geography of the Cape of Good Hope -- A paper empire : Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën as a reference work.