Reference Book Dutch VOC History – Koopman in Azie – Merchant in Asia

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Dutch Language, but easy to read with google translate on a phone

Since its founding in 1602, the Dutch East India Company has grown into the world’s largest trading company. The VOC dominated trade between Europe and Asia for two centuries. What is less known is that the Company built up an even more extensive trade network within Asia, stretching from Yemen to Japan. The VOC even partly financed European trade with proceeds in Asia. Yet the Asian VOC company has never been studied or described to its full extent. Koopman in Asia puts an end to that gap. Historian Els Jacobs takes the reader on an exciting trading journey past the VOC branches in Asia. Look over the shoulder of the merchant and discover how he bought and sold his products, how he dealt with Asian suppliers and customers, and what problems he had to overcome to make the VOC trade profitable. After all, after the 17th-century cannon boom had died down and the gunpowder fumes had cleared, money had to be made. The author chose an approach that is as surprising as it is innovative: not the usual division by region, but the four most important products – spices, Indian textiles, Chinese tea and Javanese coffee – form the starting point. This maps out for the first time how commercial activities within Asia are interrelated. The many new points of view and the countless carefully chosen illustrations – many of them unknown treasures from Dutch museum collections – make Koopman in Asia a colorful sketch of the Asian VOC company in the 18th century. Els M. Jacobs (1958) was a researcher and lecturer at Leiden University. Since 1998 she has been coordinator of the anniversary exhibition ‘VOC 1602-2002’, a diptych of the Maritime Museum Rotterdam and the Dutch Maritime Museum Amsterdam. Els Jacobs wrote and presented the successful television series ‘De Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie’ for Teleac/NOT. She also published, among other things, the book Sailing for pepper and tea. Short history of the Dutch East India Company, which was also published in English.