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The VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company) was the largest of the early modern European trading companies operating in Asia. Its operations produced not only warehouses packed with spices, coffee, tea, textiles, porcelain and silk, but also shiploads of documents. Data on political, economic, cultural, religious, and social conditions spread over an enormous area circulated between the VOC establishments, the administrative centre of the trade in Batavia, now the city of Jakarta, and the Board of Directors in the Netherlands. The co-operation between the National Archives of Indonesia and the Netherlands resulted in this extensive catalogue of fifteen archives of VOC institutions in Jakarta. The VOC records are included in UNESCO ́s Memory of the World Register.
"The early years of the seventeenth century saw a great flourishing of Dutch culture. In the arts, this was the era of Vermeer and Rembrandt, as well as the development of a local art market. Commerce extended around the world, with state-sponsored trading companies importing foreign goods. Politically, the Netherlands became the first nation-state in Europe, in 1648. In this book, Claudia Swan considers all these aspects together, examining the material culture of the period-the designed, manufactured, and hand-crafted materials and wares-to show how the Dutch encounter with so-called "exotic" goods played a fundamental role in the country's political formation"--