Saturday, November 1, 2014

The Cradle of Colonialism


Masselman, George, The Cradle of Colonialism, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963.

Available at Questia.

Reviewed in Journal of Southeast Asian History © 1966.

Reviewed in The Journal of Economic History © 1964.

Reviewed in The William and Mary Quarterly © 1965.

From the cover:
During the first three decades of the seventeenth century, the Dutch rose to a position of pre-eminence in the European exploitation of Southeast Asia. Mr. Masselman gives a graphic account of that rise from the building of the Holland dikes and the earliest Dutch efforts toward sea power to the consolidation of the influence of the United East India Company in the Indonesian Archipelago. The duels with England, Portugal, and Spain for control of the sea and trade, the exploration of sea routes to the Far East, the background history of Indonesia, and the birth there of capitalistic colonialism, are all examined. The dealings of the Dutch sailors and merchants who determined the character of early colonial policy and the documents on which their history is based are given more detailed treatment than has hitherto been available in English.

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