Pieter C. Emmer is Professor of the History of the Expansion of Europe and the related migration movements at University of Leiden. He was a visiting fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, UK (1978-79), at the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin (2000-2001) and at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (2002-2003), Wassenaar, The Netherlands. He served as visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin (1986-87) and at the University of Hamburg, Germany (1996-97). Pieter Emmer is member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Lateinamerikas, Studien zur historischen Migrationsforschung, Journal of Caribbean History, Itinerario and author of The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580-1880 (Aldershot, 1998) and co-editor of Migration, Integration, Minorities, a European Encyclopaedia to be published by Cambridge University Press. In 2004, he became a member of the Academia Europaea.
“[Emmer offers] a compelling and well researched story of the relationship between power and greed in shaping the dealings of the Dutch with the non-European world before 1850, and how this in turn shaped Dutch history…Emmer’s account of the Dutch slave trade, and issues of moral conscience and national identity that underpin it,is likely to encourage yet more research and reflection among both scholars and others on how slavery was interwoven with the history of other European nations.” · The International History Review “…a succinct overview of the state of research on the Dutch Atlantic slave trade from its emergence in the early seventeenth century until its disappearance nearly two centuries later, as ell as a brief discussion of its moral implications.” · Business History Review “[This book] is to be highly recommended to anybody who is looking for brief and concise information on key aspects of the Dutch slave trade.” · Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte “This is a short book on what turns out to be a rather bigger subject than might have been expected from the title; not because the Dutch slave trade was so important, but because Emmer uses it as an entry to a wide range of issues concerning the Atlantic slave trade in general and its historiography...a triumph of concision… It is remarkable how much interesting material and controversial argument he has managed to pack into such a limited space. The translation by Chris Emery from the original Dutch text is clear and reads well." · Reviews in History
