A. Delmas, Les Voyages de l’écrit. Culture écrite et expansion européenne à l’époque moderne : essais sur la Compagnie Hollandaise des Indes Orientales - History, Politics and Society

French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Delmas, Les Voyages de l’écrit. Culture écrite et expansion européenne à l’époque moderne : essais sur la Compagnie Hollandaise des Indes Orientales
History, Politics and Society

Adrien Delmas, Les Voyages de l’écrit. Culture écrite et expansion européenne à l’époque moderne : essais sur la Compagnie Hollandaise des Indes Orientales

Paris : Honoré Champion, "Atelier des voyages" series, 2013.

EAN 9782745323101.

  • 288 pages, paperback
  • 60 EUR

Publisher's Description:

More at ease, until now, within a national framework than in the rolling swell of global history, the history of the book has neglected one of the fundamental actors in the widespread adoption of the written word in the early modern period. The commercial and colonial organizations through which global integration occurred from the sixteenth century onwards—whether the Portuguese Estado da Índia, the Spanish Carrera de Indias, or the English, Dutch, or French East India Companies—nevertheless played a major role in the circulation of the written word on a global scale. Should we consider the ship's deck and the captain's cabin as sites, alongside the State, the Church, and the University, where our modern relationship with written culture was forged? To bring to light this shared history between the history of written culture and that of European expansion, this book offers a series of explorations into the writing practices of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), the Dutch East India Company founded in 1602.

Adrien Delmas holds a PhD in history from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and is a researcher at the European University Institute (Florence). His current research focuses on the beginnings of Orientalism in Europe. He recently published Written Culture in a Colonial Context. Africa and the Americas, 1500-1900, Cape Town/Leiden, UCT Press/Brill, 2011.

This collection of essays contributes to the broader field of the history of the book and global history by examining how early modern commercial organizations shaped written culture. While traditional scholarship often focuses on national frameworks like the State, the Church, and the University, this work investigates maritime spaces such as ships and colonial outposts as vital sites for the circulation of texts. By focusing on the administrative and communicative practices of the Dutch East India Company founded in 1602, the author bridges the gap between economic expansion and the history of writing during the early modern period.

The book will interest historians of the early modern era, scholars of European expansion, and researchers exploring the intersection of global trade and administrative practices. It helps answer questions regarding how distant commercial networks maintained control and recorded information across vast oceanic distances. Readers seeking to understand the material history of communication and the bureaucratic foundations of overseas trade will find these essays a valuable resource for contextualizing the globalization of written culture from the sixteenth century onward.