It is the paradox at the heart of the Dutch Republic: how could a state emerge from resistance to political slavery and subjugation by a foreign power, only to become a colonial empire that promoted slavery all over the world? Slavery and the Dutch State shows how the modern Dutch state and its predecessors were complicit in colonial slavery. It describes the roles of various actors, such as enslaved people, administrators and merchants in the Netherlands and the colonized societies. More tha...

The year 2023 will be known as the most consequential year in Israel in generations. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict intensified into levels of violence that shocked the world. The bloody episode overshadowed a constitutional overhaul introduced by Israel’s Likud-led government, widely criticized as an attempted executive coup. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's most impactful leader in decades and indicted for multiple corruption charges, has entered his third term as Prime Minister following f...

Al sinds de oprichting in 1988 is het islamitisch basisonderwijs in Nederland een bron van discussie. De ontwikkeling ervan heeft de afgelopen dertig jaar niet stilgestaan en geeft aanleiding tot nieuwe inzichten. Toch worden in de discussie al jarenlang dezelfde argumenten gebruikt. Hoe geven de verschillende islamitische basisscholen vandaag de dag vorm aan hun identiteit? En hoe wegen zij de verschillende maatschappelijke debatten over de islam daarin af?

Dit boek laat – met een focus op...

In October 1740, a tragedy unfolded in Batavia, the Asian headquarters of the Dutch East India Company on the island of Java. Faced with a spontaneous Chinese peasant uprising, Batavia’s vengeful inhabitants carried out a bloody massacre of their fellow Chinese within the city walls. The murderers marched from house to house, looting and pillaging, not even sparing the hospitals and prisons.

How could such a slaughter take place in the prosperous Queen of the East? Drawing on a wealth of Du...

Ancient civilizations often developed near major rivers, like in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In Central Asia, the Murghab alluvial fan in southern Turkmenistan was central to the emergence of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), also known as the Oxus Civilization, during the third and second millennia BCE. The local alluvial fan was central for the productive agriculture at the basis of the region's urban centers and the wealth that accumulated in these societies.

This volume expl...

This book presents the first-ever English translation of 'The Open Door to Hidden Paganism', one of the earliest and most detailed studies of South Indian Hinduism. Written in 1651 by Abraham Rogerius, a Dutch East India Company clergyman and missionary, it offers an unexpectedly balanced account of the customs and traditions of the South Indian Brahmins. This made it a cornerstone of early European Indology.

In addition to the Dutch original, this edition includes a full English translation...