Songs of an imperial underdog Imperialism and popular culture in the Netherlands, 1870-1960

The emergence of public interest in the Dutch Indies must be considered as part of the transformation of the old mercantile empire of the seventeenth century into a modern colonial state. The traditional conservative colonial policy mainly drew in ideas of 'association', whereby the Dutch and indigenous cultures existed separately from each other. The Dutch Empire also included possessions in the Caribbean: Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles. At the end of the nineteenth century the Netherlands underwent a process of centralisation and modernisation. The chapter argues that imperial ideology played an important role in the development of national identity in the Netherlands during 1870 and 1960. At the start of the twenty-first century old certainties seem to crumble rapidly, which is all the more reason to dig into the historical question how people in the Netherlands tried to deal with their complicated status of an imperial underdog.