Little gem of a book amongst all historical writings on the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) applying an innovative concept: the biography of a well-documented VOC ship.

The book presents the seven trips of the Jonge Lieve to the East Indies, India and China and a lot more inter-Asian shipping trips; the life, death and career of its crew and passengers; its cargo and its final disassembly. What is also refreshing is the lack of projected possibilities that mars so many books on the VOC (and often tells us more about the writer and his/her lack of imagination than it tells us about the actual events and lives of the involved). Hence the book is full of mundane facts and figures, limiting itself to what can be known based on company records and earlier books, paintings, maps, drawings and testimonies. That approach yields a surprising harvest of stunning information as well as personal titbits, partly because the VOC company records have been passed down to us virtually intact (the same can not be said about its Portuguese predecessor, the Estado da India, of which virtually all records in the Casa da India have been lost in the aftermath of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755).

The first chapter deals with the organisation of the ‘lofty company’ and the building of the 150 feet ship in the company’s ship building yard in Oostenburg, Amsterdam. The next chapter deals with the different stretches of the voyage to Asia and back, explaining winds, routes, dangers, staging posts, shipping practices and cargoes. Next, chapter 3 reveals details about the crew and passengers: their recruitment, origins, pay scales, food and health care as well as personal gear during the voyage. Chapter 4 reconstructs the ship’s seven long distance travels, cargo, interactions and its various inter-Asian trips between 1761 and its final stripping in 1781. While the Jonge Lieve never encountered any major mishap (battle or ship wrecking experience), the author does discuss the fate of other less fortunate ships with whom de Jonge Lieve travelled. In the final chapter (5) the author reveals the fate of all persons that ever travelled on the ship – it turns out that almost 33.3% of all travellers returned in patria (of which a higher percentage amongst seamen (44%), and much lower rate among craftsmen and soldiers (11%)). Over 50% did not survive the trip(s) and only about 1% remained somewhere in Asia, as Free citizens (often married with a local spouse).

This neat, factual book, full of graphs, tables and maps is a real fount of knowledge on the day-to-day interactions and practices of the VOC. It is remarkable in producing stunning, factual insights, ranging from the origins of the crew (43.2% from the Dutch Republic itself; 31.3% from Germany; quite a few from Scandinavian and Baltic countries – Sweden 3.5%; Denmark 3.4%, Poland 3%; and surprisingly few from non-European origins (0.5%) explaining the ‘whiteness’ of the whole enterprise) to the fate of recruited orphans and the whereabouts of some maverick characters. I could only wish more of such books could be written. ( )