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The Dutch Diaspora: The Netherlands and Its Settlements in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Howard J. Wiarda. Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. xi + 237 pp. (Paper US $ 29.95)
In the historiography of Dutch colonial expansion there is traditionally a dichotomy between Asia and the Atlantic region. One group of historians concentrates on the sphere of influence of the former Dutch East India Company, which included the Cape Colony in South Africa, and another studies the settlements and commercial activities of the Dutch in West Africa and in the Americas. For a long time this latter group consisted of a handful of historians dividing the settlements in Africa, the Caribbean, and North and South America between them, and in most cases acquiring expertise on only a limited geographical area. Only recently has an all-encompassing Atlantic approach been developed. A first attempt at a comparative study including both the Eastern and Western hemisphere and concentrating on forced and voluntary migratory patterns within the Dutch colonial empire appeared just last year (Oostindie 2008).
The publication of a book on the Netherlands and its settlements in Africa, Asia, and the Americas by a hitherto unknown author in this field comes, then, as a surprise. Who is Howard J. Wiarda? He is the Dean Rusk Professor of International Relations, founding head of the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, and a senior scholar at the Center of Strategic and International Studies in Washington...