During the period of the Dutch East India Company's rule of the Spice Islands, Prince Nuku of Tidore stands out as the local hero who successfully opposed the VOC's oppressive trade monopoly at the end of the eighteenth century. This study analyzes how he succeeded in regaining independence for the Sultanate of Tidore by creating an alliance with the English and his Malukan and Papuan adherents.

Based on Dutch and English archival sources, this study analyses the political economy of Gujarat in the eighteenth century and situates the economic growth of the region in the broader context of the major issues and debates in the historiography of early modern South Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Is there any truth in the story that the morality of the servants of the Dutch East India Company in the eighteenth century was so rotten that one should believe the Dutch maxim 'Vergaan Onder Corruptie' - in translation something like 'Succumbed to Corruption' - and use this as an explanation for a very complex phenomenon? Chris Nierstrasz introduces us in his In the Shadow of the Company, to the realities of the decision makers and of the servants in the field. Responding to the changing realities in Asia, the Company could only try to use the mercantile potential of its higher...