Indonesia's history is defined by hundreds of smaller kingdoms. Professor Hans Hägerdal discusses the challenges of documenting these diverse polities and introduces the Kerajaan2 Indonesia dataset, a digital resource for tracing the genealogies of the archipelago's many royal houses, which was instrumental for creating the Globalise polities dataset.
Lina de Swaaf reflects on the GLOBALISE conference, from keynotes and academic papers to roundtable discussions and performance lectures.
We are pleased to announce the GLOBALISE Conference, to be held from 4 to 6 March 2026 at the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.
Conference schedule now available! More details and registration information will follow.
This blog traces the fragmented story of Maria, an enslaved woman from Liuqiu. Her case exposes the violence masked by the Dutch East India Company’s claims of humane governance and shows how projects such as GLOBALISE and Voices of Resistance are transforming our ability to uncover marginalized lives and the afterlives of colonial genocide.
On 6 February 1642, the ships of Jacob Liesvelt, merchant of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), arrived at the Thoron bay on the coast of Quinam. Here, he sent…
Colonial Pasts, New Approaches and Historiographical Futures: Explorations of GLOBALISE, the Dutch East India Company Archives and the writing of new histories. Date: 4-6 March 2026 Location: International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
Introduction The Dutch East India Company (VOC) records are in the Nationaal Archief Den Haag, under the number 1.04.02. These trading company records span two centuries and cover a wide…
This blogpost contains references to methods of punishment that users might find disturbing. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) established and controlled numerous trading posts (factories) across maritime Asia, one…
Marc Widmer has recently graduated from the Free University of Berlin and the Humboldt University of Berlin with a master’s degree in Global History. His studies focus on urban history,…
Do you know what a roll of ‘periemoenemolam’ is? Or what ‘gorgorongs’ are for that matter? Chance is, that you will at some point encounter cryptic terms like these as types of traded goods in the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This blog post tells about the efforts of the GLOBALISE project to create a thesaurus of textiles that helps researchers find their way in the VOC archives
