Itinerario: Volume 36 - | Cambridge Core

The Colonial Flow of Trade, Credit, and Information: The Chinese-Arab Clientele System of Van Beek, Reineke and Co. / HVA (1870s–1880s)
Alexander Claver
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01 November 2012, pp. 109-127
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Trade has been one of the determining features of Indonesian history. Attention has often focused on the monopolising efforts of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), which came to be replaced in the nineteenth century by an equally monopolising government and its Cultuurstelsel or Cultivation System (1830-70). However, the economic sector was never devoid of private initiative as exemplified by the development of Batavia. The city offered access to major trade routes and soon after its foundation became a military, economic, and administrative centre. Feeding and housing its growing population required the import of food supplies, building materials, and other items. Private trade was of vital importance in this respect.

Repositioning the Dutch in the Atlantic, 1680–1800
Gert Oostindie, Jessica Vance Roitman
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01 November 2012, pp. 129-160
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After some decades of historical debate about the early modern Atlantic, it has become a truism that the Atlantic may better be understood as a world of connections rather than as a collection of isolated national sub-empires. Likewise, it is commonly accepted that the study of this interconnected Atlantic world should be interdisciplinary, going beyond traditional economic and political history to include the study of the circulation of people and cultures. This view was espoused and expanded upon in the issue of Itinerario on the nature of Atlantic history published thirteen years ago—the same issue in which Pieter Emmer and Wim Klooster famously asserted that there was no Dutch Atlantic empire. Since this controversial article appeared, there has been a resurgence of interest among scholars about the role of the Dutch in the Atlantic. With Atlantic history continuing to occupy a prominent place in Anglo-American university history departments, it seems high time to appraise the output of this resurgence of interest with an historiographical essay reviewing the major works and trends in the study of the Dutch in the Atlantic.