Gijs Dreijer – författare

This open access book presents a groundbreaking new perspective on European imperialism in Africa, by focusing on the role of Dutch private entrepreneurs in colonial activities during the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’. Distinguishing between a state-based ‘Partition of’ and an actor-based ‘Scramble for’ Africa, the book illustrates this process by tracking the entrepreneurial strategy of a group of Dutch entrepreneurs in the Scramble, at a time when the Dutch state itself largely withdrew from the African continent. This book thus investigates why and how nineteenth-century Dutch entrepreneurs from the port city of Rotterdam invested significant resources in West and West Central Africa between the 1830s and the 1910s. It demonstrates the trans-national nature of colonial investments in the Scramble for Africa, highlighting the crucial role Dutch entrepreneurs played in trade, production and investment in empires across West and West Central Africa (the Congo Free State, French Congo and Portuguese Angola). The book aims to rethink the Dutch role in European imperialism more broadly and its repercussions in the present day.The book takes into account the social and political implications of colonial entrepreneurship as much as the economic and business implications, going beyond a strictly entrepreneurial analysis of success and failure. It will be essential reading for scholars of economic and business history, as well as historians of imperialism, colonialism and trans-imperial relations.

Listen to the podcast here.As the fall-out of the Ever Given Suez canal blockage shows, an ancient instrument like General Average (GA) is still highly relevant in redistributing risks and costs in maritime trade. However, bar marine insurance, not much is known about the development of tools of maritime risk management like GA, which redistributes extraordinary costs incurred for the common safety of maritime ventures.This book investigates the development of General Average and other so-called Averages in the Low Countries on the eve of the early modern period, showing how the various varieties of Averages played a significant role in the development of maritime risk management and the broader institutional development in the Low Countries.