No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

In this groundbreaking book, Kerry Ward proposes the idea of a "network" to take forward new ways of thinking about empire, especially in contexts where archival evidence is disconnected and fragmentary. Ward's broad subject area is the Dutch Empire, during the whole period of the East India Company (VOC) and across its entire geographical domain. The VOC operated between 1602 and 1799, and its activities stretched between imperial "nodes" in the Cape, East African coast and Mascarene Islands, and across the Indian Ocean to South Asia, Batavia (its headquarters was in Jakarta), and the Moluccas. Ward defines empire as an intersection of material and discursive networks that exist simultaneously as "paths of circulation" for people, goods, and information, and as "nodal regulatory points" in regional centres.[10] In thinking about "networks" and "nodes" in this way, her aim -which she certainly achieves -is to move VOC historiography beyond simplistic constructions of "metropole" and "periphery." [8-9] Further, it allows Ward to think through the shared historical relationship between Indonesia and the Cape, so addressing important post-colonial questions around the politics 'New York: Cambridge University Press [www.cup.org], 2008. xvi + 340 pp., maps, bibliography, index. £45, US $85, cloth; ISBN 978-0-521-88586-7; paper; ISBN 978-0-521-74599-4; US $68, e-book; ISBN 978-0-511-46071-5.

No abstract