Realm Between Empires

"The Dutch Atlantic during an era (following the imperial moment of the seventeenth century) in which Dutch military power declined and Dutch colonies began to chart a more autonomous path. A revisionist history of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, a counterpoint to the more widely known British and French Atlantic histories"--

"Wim Klooster and Gert Oostindie present a fresh look at the Dutch Atlantic in the period following the imperial moment of the seventeenth century. This epoch (1680-1815), the authors argue, marked a distinct and significant era in which Dutch military power declined and Dutch colonies began to chart a more autonomous path. The loss of Brazil and New Netherland were twin blows to Dutch imperial pretensions. Yet the Dutch Atlantic hardly faded into insignificance. Instead, the influence of the Dutch remained, as they were increasingly drawn into the imperial systems of Britain, Spain, and France. In their synthetic and comparative history, Klooster and Oostindie reveal the fragmented identity and interconnectedness of the Dutch in three Atlantic theaters: West Africa, Guiana, and the insular Caribbean. They show that the colonies and trading posts were heterogeneous in their governance, religious profiles, and ethnic compositions and were marked by creolization. Even as colonial control weakened, the imprint of Dutch political, economic, and cultural authority would mark territories around the Atlantic for decades to come. Realm between Empires is a powerful revisionist history of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world and provides a much-needed counterpoint to the more widely known British and French Atlantic histories."--

After the collapse of the Han dynasty in the third century CE, China divided along a north-south line. Mark Lewis traces the changes that both underlay and resulted from this split in a period that saw the geographic redefinition of China, more engagement with the outside world, significant changes to family life, developments in the literary and social arenas, and the introduction of new religions. The Yangzi River valley arose as the rice-producing center of the country. Literature moved beyond the court and capital to depict local culture, and newly emerging social spaces included the garden, temple, salon, and country villa. The growth of self-defined genteel families expanded the notion of the elite, moving it away from the traditional great Han families identified mostly by material wealth. Trailing the rebel movements that toppled the Han, the new faiths of Daoism and Buddhism altered every aspect of life, including the state, kinship structures, and the economy. By the time China was reunited by the Sui dynasty in 589 ce, the elite had been drawn into the state order, and imperial power had assumed a more transcendent nature. The Chinese were incorporated into a new world system in which they exchanged goods and ideas with states that shared a common Buddhist religion. The centuries between the Han and the Tang thus had a profound and permanent impact on the Chinese world.

This volume explores the intellectual history of the Dutch Empire from a long-term and global perspective, analysing how ideas and visions of empire took shape in imperial practice from the seventeenth century to the present day. Through a series of case studies, the volume critically unearths deep-rooted conceptions of Dutch imperial exceptionalism and shows how visions of imperial rule were developed in metropolitan and colonial contexts and practices. Topics include the founding of the Dutch chartered companies for colonial trade, the development of commercial and global visions of empire in Europe and Asia, the continuities and ruptures in imperial ideas and practices around 1800, and the practical making of empire in colonial court rooms and radio broadcasting. Demonstrating the relevance of a long-term approach to the Dutch Empire, the volume showcases how the intellectual history of empire can provide fresh light on postcolonial repercussions of empire and imperial rule. Chapter 1, Chapter 3, Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This book explores the perspective of individuals, families and groups of interest in their daily strive to survive an European pursuit of empire.

Part biography, part transnational history, this study details the life and career of Percy Spender, one of Australia's most prominent twentieth-century political figures.

A fascinating portrait of Jewish life in Suriname from the 17th to 19th centuries Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society explores the political and social history of the Jews of Suriname, a Dutch colony on the South American mainland just north of Brazil. Suriname was home to the most privileged Jewish community in the Americas where Jews, most of Iberian origin, enjoyed religious liberty, were judged by their own tribunal, could enter any trade, owned plantations and slaves, and even had a say in colonial governance. Aviva Ben-Ur sets the story of Suriname's Jews in the larger context of Atlantic slavery and colonialism and argues that, like other frontier settlements, they achieved and maintained their autonomy through continual negotiation with the colonial government. Drawing on sources in Dutch, English, French, Hebrew, Portuguese, and Spanish, Ben-Ur shows how, from their first permanent settlement in the 1660s to the abolition of their communal autonomy in 1825, Suriname Jews enjoyed virtually the same standing as the ruling white Protestants, with whom they interacted regularly. She also examines the nature of Jewish interactions with enslaved and free people of African descent in the colony. Jews admitted both groups into their community, and Ben-Ur illuminates the ways in which these converts and their descendants experienced Jewishness and autonomy. Lastly, she compares the Jewish settlement with other frontier communities in Suriname, most notably those of Indians and Maroons, to measure the success of their negotiations with the government for communal autonomy. The Jewish experience in Suriname was marked by unparalleled autonomy that nevertheless developed in one of the largest slave colonies in the New World.

In 1898, both Cuba and the Philippines achieved their independence from Spain and then immediately became targets of US expansionism. This book presents a comparative analysis of late-nineteenth-century literature and history in Cuba and the Philippines, focusing on the writings of José Martí and José Rizal to reveal shared anti-imperial struggles.