Contributions to the book 'Good Hope: South Africa and the Netherlands from 1600'

ASCL senior researcher Jan-Bart Gewald has written a chapter in the lavishly illustrated book 'Good Hope: South Africa and the Netherlands from 1600' that accompanies the exhibition with the same title in the Rijksmuseum (on show until 21 May 2017). Jan-Bart Gewald is Professor of the history of Southern Africa at Leiden University. His chapter deals with 'People on the move', or in Dutch: 'Mensen op drift' in the 19th centrury. ASCL honorary fellow Professor Emeritus Robert Ross is co-editor of the book and wrote the chapter 'The world the Dutch invaded: pre-colonial South Africa', or in Dutch: 'De Wereld die de Nederlanders binnenvielen: prekoloniaal Zuid-Afrika'. ASCL’s former intern François Janse van Rensburg, now a lecturer at Leiden University, contributed an article about the portraits of Jan van Riebeeck.

The book explores what took place between 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, and Mandela's visit to Amsterdam in 1990. The arrival of the Dutch in South Africa cast its original inhabitants adrift. Borders shifted and whole populations moved away, disintegrated or assimilated into other groups. During the apartheid years, many Dutch were fiercely involved in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Good Hope is part of the Rijksmuseum Country Series published by the museum's History Department. Publisher: Uitgeverij Vantilt.

There is an English and a Dutch version of the book.