The Dutch diaspora : growing up Dutch in new worlds and the old : the Netherlands and its settlements in Africa, Asia, and the Americas / Howard J. Wiarda.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wiarda, Howard J., 1939-2015.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Netherlands--Colonies.

Netherlands.

Colonies.

Dutch--Foreign countries.

Physical Description:

xi, 237 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2007]

Summary:

The Dutch Diaspora is a comprehensive and personal study of the Netherlands and its former colonial empire. The Netherlands is considered one of the most successful societies in the world, and at one point was the globe's largest empire-stretching from Japan to the United States. The author, Howard J. Wiarcia, having grown up in western Michigan, is himself of Dutch descent, and he combines thorough scholarship with firsthand experience of travels to the Netherlands and its far-flung former colonies. The study analyzes how colonies reacted to the institutional and ideological beliefs implanted by the Dutch settlers, and how those colonies evolved in terms of cultural, religious, and political beliefs. For example, the Dutch in the seventeenth century brought Calvinism to South Africa and entrepreneurialism to New Amsterdam and Curacao, and in the nineteenth century supported slave plantation systems in Indonesia and Suriname, but free societies in the American Midwest. As time passed the evolution of the colonies was telling: While Calvinism declined in the Netherlands it remained vibrant and progressive in the Midwest. In many ways, the former colonies adapted to modernization better than the mother country. The Dutch Diaspora is an insightful and accessible study of colonialism useful to upper-level undergraduates and all students and researchers of Dutch history.

Contents:

Introduction : the Dutch and their colonial fragments

The Netherlands : a proud history and culture

The Dutch community in western Michigan

Growing up Dutch : Zion on the prairies

New Amsterdam and the East Coast Dutch

The modern Netherlands : community in crisis

The Americas : the Dutch in Brazil, Suriname, and the Caribbean

Dying memories : the Dutch empire in Asia

Indonesia : the epitome of colonialism and imperialism

South Africa and the apartheid regime

Back to the origins : Geneva and the Protestant Reformation

Struggling to survive : the Reformed tradition in Austro-Hungary

Conclusion : the Dutch diaspora in its one and many parts.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-222) and index.

ISBN:

9780739121047

0739121049

9780739121054

0739121057

OCLC:

137324928