Search results

'One does not write history with value judgements.' Van Leur made this remark, countering the 'Dutch refrain' sung by Godée Molsbergen, which indicted the corruption of the VOC-servants as a cause of the Company's downfall. Van Leur explained that the standard for a modern officialdom was only created with the Napoleonic state and 'it was therefore anachronistic to apply this standard to the 18th century'. Criticism of the integrity of the Company servants in this century is a post facto criticism. But if history cannot be written with value judgements, it cannot do without any judgements at all. Van Leur judged 'the achievements of a Hartingh, a Von Hohendorff, a Mossel, a Van der Parra, and, on the Indonesian side, of a Mangkubumi, a Mas Sahid, a Cakraningrat certainly on par with those of Speelman, a Van Goens, and a Aru Palakka'.

J.P. de Korte, De jaarlijkse financiële verantwoording in de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Leiden, Martinus Nijhoff, 1984. Werken uitgegeven door de Vereeniging Het Nederlandsch Economisch Historisch Archief, 17. XIV + 94 blz, 14 appendices. ISBN 90 247 2108 3.J.J. Steur, Herstel of ondergang. De voorstellen tot redres van de V.O.C. 1740-1795, Utrecht, HES Uitgevers, 1984, 322 blz. ISBN 90 6194 214 4.