Korte beschrijving/Annotatie

This book evokes the forgotten colonial tragedy of the Chinese massacre at Batavia in 1740.

Tekst achterflap

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 Dutch and Chinese sources, Leonard Blussé reconstructs the colonial development of Batavia and its environs, and the crucial Chinese contribution to it. After more than a hundred years of successful cooperation, this spectacular colonial project was lost to a toxic mix of ecological decline, epidemics, runaway Chinese immigration and high-level personal conflicts within the colonial administration, with the Chinese paying the ultimate price. Never before has so much attention to detail revealed what preceded the massacre and how this tragedy was eventually swept under the carpet of colonial history.

Slogan/Promotie

'A Colonial Tragedy' was shortlisted for the 'Libris Geschiedenis Prijs,' the most prestigious award for history books in the Netherlands.

Biografie

Leonard Blussé (1946) held the chair in the History of Asian-European Relations at the University of Leiden. His best-known publications in English include Strange Company, (KITLV press, 1986), Bitter Bonds (Markus Wiener, 2002), Visible Cities (Harvard UP, 2008), and the Chinese Annals of Batavia (Brill, 2018).

Inhoudsopgave

Table of Contents Foreword Chapter 1. Setting the Stage: Dutch Trade and Chinese Diaspora Chapter 2. The Chinese puzzle Chapter 3. Pieter van Hoorn’s Colonization Plans Chapter 4. Joan van Hoorn, Colonizer of the Ommelanden Chapter 5. The Chinese Surge Chapter 6. Different Century, New Protagonists Chapter 7. The Crisis of Governance Chapter 8. The Slapping Hand of the Lord Chapter 9. Adriaan Valckenier in the Lime Light Chapter 10. Der Wille Zur Macht: Van Imhoff Goes to Ceylon Chapter 11. ‘ The Ship is half sunken’: a Peek behind the Chinese Scene Chapter 12. Small Causes, Great Consequences Chapter 13. Beyond the City Walls: the Chinese Rebellion Chapter 14. Within the city walls: fear and amok Chapter 15. History at the crossroads Chapter 16. Peripetia and Catharsis Afterword: Prospero and Caliban Acknowledgements Bibliography Notes Illustration Credits Index

Details