The colourful world of the VOC

With this work, Akveld and Jacobs commemorate the four-hundred year anniversary of the founding of the United East India Company, or by its Dutch initials, the VOC, which became the largest shipping organization in the world due to its monopoly on all Dutch trading and shipping to Asia. The authors draw on a remarkable selection of rare art, exquisite objects and documents to chronicle the VOC's expansion in the East through a combination of military force, commercial contacts and diplomacy in Indonesia, China, Japan, India and Ceylon. Over time, the authors argue, the daily lives of the Dutch were influenced by their Asian trading partners, particularly in regard to eating and drinking habits, styles of dress and furnishings, and interest in scientific inquiry. It makes clear how in the course of two centuries, Asians and Europeans learned to live with one another.