In 1724-1726, the Dutch clergyman François Valentyn published a 5,000-page account of the Dutch East India Companyâs 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 Valentynâs book and its geographical spread, from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan, with a focus on the Indonesian archipelago. Huigenâs book is the first in-depth study of Valentynâs work, which is a foundational text in the history of Dutch colonialism.
Siegfried Huigen is professor of Dutch Literature at WrocÅaw 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.
"Shaping a Dutch East Indies serves as a masterful and incisive literary analysis of a seminal work in the history and construction of Dutch colonial knowledge and administrative discourse. Huigen is to be congratulated with revisiting the âthorny issueâ of Valentynâs âGreat Work,â complicating and challenging the modern scholarly communis opinio."
- Markus Vink, The State University of New York at Fredonia in International Journal of Asian Studies (2024).
"Huigens boek is verrassend van inhoud en methodiek" (Huigenâs book is refreshing in both content and methodology).
- Coen van ât Veer, Leiden University, in BMGN Low Countries Historical Review (2024).
"Huigenâs book can be recommended to anyone interested in the history of colonial knowledge production and the transnational world of the VOC."
- Hans Hägerdal, Linnaeus University, in South East Asia Research (2024).
Preface and Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Tables
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part 1 1âDescribing Imperial Space
â1âAdvertising Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën
â2âChorographies of Imperial Space
â3âText Formats
â3.1âDagregister
â3.2âChronicle
â3.3âList
â3.4âAnecdote
â4âCoherence through Authorial Voice
â5âAlternative Entries
2âLobbying for a Bible Translation in âLowâ Malay
â1âVarieties of Malay
â2âThe Controversy over the Malay Bible Translation
â3âLobbying
â4âThe Question of the Malay Translation of the Bible in Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën
â5âEpilogue
3âThe Valentyn Case Scholarly Authorship at the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century
â1âThe Location of Ophir as an Antiquarian Question
â2âValentynâs Use of Rumphiusâs Kruid-boek
â3âA Stricter Scholarly Decorum
â4âCollaborators
â5âValentynâs Authorship
Part 2 4âNatural History for liefhebbers in Valentynâs Description of Animals from Amboina
â1âAn Audience of Liefhebbers
â2âImages of Tropical Fish
â3âShells
â4âA Rhetoric of Probability
â4.1âBirds of Paradise
â4.2âSea-People
â5âHerpetological Knowledge and Indigenous Collaborators
â6âRepackaging East Indies Natural History
5ââDutch Power in Those Territoriesâ Historical Representation in Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën
â1âChronicles of Conquest
â3âFraming Dutch Hegemony
â3.1âAncients and Moderns
â3.2âMartial Batavians
â3.3âStaging Jan Pieterszoon Coen as a Hero
â4âThe Circulation of Valentynâs Master Narrative
6âAntiquarian Ambonese Valentynâs Comparative Ethnography and Ethnology
â1âA Comparative Methodology
â2ââFoolish Thoughtsâ
â3ââAny That Pisseth against the Wallâ
â4âPelimaoâs Defence
7ââThis Business of Our Nationâ The Questionable Conduct of the Dutch in Japan
â1âJapan, Christianity and the Dutch
â2âValentynâs Representation of Japan
â3âNew Information about Japan
â4âThe Abject Behaviour of the Dutch in Japan
â5âOnno Zwier van Harenâs Recherches
8ââWaste Landâ into âEarthly Paradiseâ The Geography of the Cape of Good Hope
â1âThe Cape Colony around 1700
â2âEmploying a Dutch Landscape Discourse
â3âExpeditions into the Interior
â4âTwo Geographies of the Cape
Part 3 9âA Paper Empire Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën as a Reference Work
â1âA Tool for vocBewindhebbers in the Netherlands
â2âA Resource for voc Administrators in the East Indies
â3âThe Restoration of Dutch Rule in 1816
â4âNew Policies for Amboina
â5ââValentynâ Becomes âValentijnâ
â6âA New Edition of Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën
â7âA Paper Empire
âConclusion
Appendix The Text Organisation of Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën
References
Index
Shaping a Dutch East Indies is relevant to anyone interested in the construction of colonial knowledge and the effects this had on the development of colonial governance in the period 1700-1850.
Subject areas: Colonial History, South East Asia; History of Science; History of Knowledge; Dutch East Indies; Travel Writing.