The Dutch empire in intellectual history

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which ideas of greatness, reason of state, and state formation were employed in the creation of the Dutch empire. It focuses, in particular, on the role of corporations, including the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or Dutch East India Company, in providing a platform for the implementation of those ideas. It then shows how the state moved to appropriate the entire domain of political thought from such corporations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while noting the revival of their political role in the twentieth century. The paper then turns to the question of the impact of this history on the present and therefore to a consideration of the methodological issues involved in that question.