Visions of Empire in the Nazi-Occupied Netherlands
Cambridge University Press, 11/21/2011
EAN 9781107015807, ISBN10: 1107015804
Hardcover, 352 pages, 23.6 x 15.5 x 3 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
This book explores how the experiences of World War II shaped and transformed Dutch perceptions of their centuries-old empire. Focusing on the work of leading anti-Nazi resisters, Jennifer L. Foray examines how the war forced a rethinking of colonial practices and relationships. As Dutch resisters planned for a postwar world bearing little resemblance to that of 1940, they envisioned a wide range of possibilities for their empire and its territories, anticipating a newly harmonious relationship between the Netherlands and its most prized colony in the East Indies. Though most of the underground writers and thinkers discussed in this book ultimately supported the idea of a Dutch commonwealth, this structure wouldn't come to pass in the postwar period. The Netherlands instead embarked on a violent decolonization process brought about by wartime conditions in the Netherlands and the East Indies.
1. War comes to the kingdom
2. The landscape of resistance and the clandestine press
3. 'Look to the East!' collaboration, colonialism, and compensatory schemes
4. 'Indies lost, disaster born'
the trauma of early 1942
5. Mutuality, equality, and a Dutch commonwealth
the Queen's speech of December 7, 1942
6. Countering the commonwealth
the center and right enter the fray
7. 'After our liberation, that of Indonesia'
preparing for battle
8. Wartime consensus and post-war pressures
Conclusion
the end of an era.