The Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company examines the chartered corporation created in 1602 to coordinate Dutch trade and warfare in Asia. It traces the company’s commercial network from Batavia across the Indonesian archipelago and into the Indian Ocean, Japan and southern Africa.

The book explains its joint-stock structure, armed shipping, monopolies and diplomatic agreements while emphasising conquest, forced production and violence against local communities. It also follows financial strain, corruption and geopolitical competition to the company’s dissolution at the end of the eighteenth century.