Jennifer L. Foray. Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands

The last phase of Dutch colonialism has suffered undue historiographical neglect. This very welcome book represents a major step towards rectifying this anomaly. Jennifer L. Foray has produced an engaging, stimulating, and ultimately convincing study, based on careful and exhaustive research, which amply reinforces and develops existing interpretations of the corrosive influence of war on European colonialism, while clarifying the metropolitan underpinnings of late colonial rule. This scholarly yet highly readable book examines how World War II, particularly almost five years of German occupation, fundamentally altered Dutch people's views of their overseas empire. Taking as its primary focus the activities of key figures in the Dutch resistance movement and highlighting the important role played by the clandestine press under occupation, it considers how the war obliged the Netherlands to re-evaluate its colonial policies. It shows how Dutch resisters, in planning for what they expected to be radically changed postwar conditions, anticipated various possible roles for the Dutch empire and hoped for a new, amicable relationship between the Netherlands and its most important single possession, the East Indies.

Archaeology · Colonialism · Commonwealth · Economic history · Empire · German · Historiography · Nazism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Possession (linguistics) · Sociology · Vision · World War II · Anthropology · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies