Dutch East

Founded at the dawn of the 17th century as European nations were establishing global empires, the English East India Company would become a vital part of burgeoning British supremacy. Begun as a joint-stock company for trade with the East Indies, this organization would evolve into one of the world's first capitalistic corporations.

Huge international companies and corporations are a normal part of our everyday lives today. For most, their unimaginable wealth and power, rivaling even some of the smaller countries of the world, is something we take for granted. And we see them as the living embodiment of the capitalist system, regardless if we take it as a good or a bad omen. However, this wasn’t always the case.

Once valued at close to seven trillion dollars by today’s standards, the Dutch East India Company, formed in 1602, became the world’s first multinational corporation. In the nearly 200-year reign of their empire at sea, the Dutch East India Company amassed unfathomable fortunes, laid the foundation of the modern globalized world, and built monopolies that controlled the economy of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the East Indies.

Perhaps the most famous – or as many would put it, infamous – of these naval corporations was the Dutch East India Company, also known as VOC. Established around the beginning of the 17th century, this nautical behemoth of a corporation was determined to squeeze everyone else out of the market. Vested with the power to wage war and exterminate any who dared stand in their way, the rest of the world stood by as the unstoppable force took over the whole of international maritime trade.

The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano -- Krakatoa. The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the...

The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated. But who was the real James Cook? This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and...

Long before Australia started to be considered one of the best places in the world to live, it was thought to be completely unlivable. In the 15th century, the European race to claim land began. Despite the fact that Australia was a large landmass, no nation believed it was worth colonizing. The land was claimed by the Netherlands. However, little exploration happened there. Many countries actually believed it to be uninhabitable. However, the Aboriginal populations had already been thriving on the land for millennia.

From the Dawn of Civilization to the World's Largest Muslim Nation Seventeen thousand islands. One and a half million years of human history. And a story the Western world has almost completely ignored. Scattered across the equator between the Indian and Pacific Oceans lies the world's largest archipelago — a chain of volcanic islands that gave birth to civilizations rivaling anything medieval Europe produced. Temples larger than Notre-Dame. Maritime empires that controlled trade routes spanning half the globe. Kingdoms so wealthy that European explorers risked everything — and killed ...

It was the autumn of 1628, and the Batavia, the Dutch East India Company's flagship, was loaded with a king's ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java. The Batavia was the pride of the company's fleet, a tangible symbol of the world's richest and most powerful commercial monopoly. She set sail with great fanfare, but the Batavia and her gold would never reach Java.

The Dutch East India Company, officially the United East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie; VOC), was a megacorporation created in the early 17th century by a government-directed merger of many competing Dutch trade services. You might think that Amazon or Google is big, but the VOC is still thought to be the world's biggest corporation in documented history.

March 1943. The Usurper’s War has resumed, with disastrous results for the Allies. The Imperial Japanese Navy, flush with victory after securing their eastern flank, turns their gimlet gaze towards the ultimate prize for their Emperor: The Dutch East Indies. For Commander Jacob Morton, XO of the U.S.S. Houston, the oncoming Japanese storm is not unexpected. The Houston and her Allied companions will have to fight against overwhelming odds, at night, against an enemy who claims the darkness as their own.

Bloomsbury presents I Will Run Wild by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, read by Lance C Fuller. This fascinating volume offers a vivid narrative history of the early stages of the Pacific War, as US and Allied forces desperately tried to slow the Japanese onslaught that began with the sudden attack on...

In this short, faith building story, about a 30 minute read, you will marvel at God's hand in a desperate situation. Darlene Deibler was a young bride, when she was captured by the Japanese, at the beginning of World War II. She and her husband, Russell, were missionaries with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Darlene was confined with 1,600 other women and children on the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies. The conditions were horrific, the treatment was cruel and many died. But God was there with them; protecting, providing, rescuing and comforting in truly miraculous ways! ...

In June 1629, the Dutch East India Company flagship Batavia struck a hidden reef off the west coast of Australia and tore herself open on the Houtman Abrolhos. Hundreds of passengers and crew scrambled onto low, waterless coral islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, believing rescue was just a matter of time. Instead, the wreck of Batavia became the stage for one of the most chilling episodes in maritime history. While Captain Francisco Pelsaert sailed away in an open boat to seek help, under-merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz quietly seized control of the survivors. With food and water ...

In his new novel, Paulo Coelho, bestselling author of The Alchemist and Adultery, brings to life one of history's most enigmatic women: Mata Hari. HER ONLY CRIME WAS TO BE AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN When Mata Hari arrived in Paris she was penniless. Within months she was the most celebrated woman in...

Batavia, 1772. A dead man. A door locked from the inside. And a Company that would rather bury the truth than face it. When Opperkoopman Bram Voskuijlen is found dead in his own strongroom — the door barred from within by his own trusted hand — the Governor's council has already decided who to blame: an old servant with no one of consequence to speak for him. Quirijn Leclercq, a sharp-tongued auditor newly arrived from Antwerp, isn't so easily satisfied. As he measures a vent two hands wide, tests a candle's slow burn against an hourglass, and follows a discrepancy through a year of ...

Why would the Empire of Japan imprison five Dutch radio engineers, hold their families hostage, and move them from Indonesia to Japan? And why would one of them die? Through heartfelt letters written across decades, oceans, and generations, and during her travels across the world, Laura begins...

Worldwide bestselling author Wilbur Smith will take you on an incredible journey on the thrashing seas off the coast of Africa in this glorious return to the series that made him who he is: The Courtney series. East African Coast, 1670. In a time of brave and brutal adventure, one man will...

Bloomsbury presents America's Few by Bill Yenne, read by Geoff Sugiyama. America's Few delves into the history of US Marine Corps aviation in World War II, following the feats of the Corps’ top-scoring aces in the skies over Guadalcanal. Marine Corps aviation began in 1915, functioning as a...

Experience the epic Southeast Asian history of how a scattered archipelago forged a unified republic through revolution. Perfect for your morning commute or an evening of armchair travel, this dramatic narrative transports you across the Indian Ocean. You will sail alongside ancient merchants...