This book describes and analyzes the relations between Dutch commerce and Chinese merchants in colonial Java in the period from 1800 to 1942, focusing on the role of trade and finance. The author, whose sources were primarily Dutch-language archives in Indonesia and the Netherlands, pays special attention to the access to capital, information, and security that the traders had for their commercial enterprise. The book is comprised of seven chapters, each of which focuses on a particular chronological period related to Dutch-Chinese commercial relations during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.

In chapter 2, the author points out the resilience of private enterprise under the government-led cultuurstelsel (Cultivation System) and describes two particular cases of Chinese entrepreneurship. Then, an analysis of Dutch commerce and financial institutions in the transition period after 1870 is illustrated by the cases of the Internationale Crediet- en Handelsvereeniging “Rotterdam” (Internatio), a big trading company, and De Javasche Bank (DJB), the colony's leading bank. The chapter also describes the start of another big trading company, the Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam (HVA), in 1878.

Chapter 3 discusses the economic crisis of 1884 and the subsequent reorganization of trade and finance. Starting in February 1884, and alongside the depression of the sugar market, several trading firms went bankrupt. Before the end of the year, trust in the stability of even the biggest institutions started to wane. As a result, the Koloniale Bank (KB) was in effect bankrupt. Internatio was also hit hard; it gradually recovered only by reorganizing its whole business. The venture of Dorrepaal & Co., the largest financier of agricultural enterprise in Java, also went into bankruptcy in 1887. After the bankruptcy, it was reorganized into a new enterprise, in 1888. In Surabaya, a Chinese sugar trading firm named Sing Liong & Co. was declared bankrupt in 1893 after longtime fraud was exposed. After such bitter experiences, DJB introduced tighter credit regulations.

Chapter 4 describes the structural change in Dutch-Chinese commercial relations after the end of the nineteenth century. There was a long history of such partnerships in Java; revenue farming became the institutionalized form of this cooperation. However, from the 1870s onward, the opposition to revenue farming (opium farms, in particular) started to gain momentum. In the 1890s, the colonial government began to introduce a scheme by which it could directly manage the opium supply. This signaled the end of opium farms and then all kinds of revenue farming, prompting the reformation of the whole Chinese community. The emergence of Chinese nationalism also boosted this change. As a result, the Chinese struggle for economic and social privileges intensified markedly at the beginning of the twentieth century. In this context, the author describes waves of boycotts by Chinese in Surabaya (1902–1905) and Semarang (1908) against the HVA, which had maneuvered to drive away competitors in the wholesale trade of import goods to Chinese retailers. The Chinese protests were effective, and the HVA stopped its import trade in 1910, choosing instead to specialize in managing agricultural enterprises and exporting their products.

In chapter 5, the author discusses this change in business strategy by HVA in more detail and then describes the general situation before and after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, with particular attention to the business policy of DJB. Next, in a most interesting section of the book, we are given the story of Kwik Hoo Tong Handelsmaatschappij (郭河東公司[KHT]), a prominent Chinese trading company based in Central Java, and its leader, Kwik Djoen Eng (郭春秧). KHT was established in 1894 in Solo by five members of the Kwik family. Kwik Djoen Eng was born in 1859 in South China and moved to Central Java in 1877. Following a visit to Taiwan in 1888, he started a business importing tea from there to Java. At the same time, he cofounded KHT, the core business of which was the sugar trade. In 1904, Kwik obtained Japanese citizenship as a Taiwan resident (台湾籍民) to obtain a higher legal status in the Dutch colony. In 1910, he became the virtual top leader of KHT as its second managing director. Before 1919, KHT's business of sugar export expanded rapidly, and Kwik started to invest in new business in Hong Kong aimed at the construction of a sugar refinery and attached harbor facilities. However, in 1920 KHT's financial position began to gradually worsen, until it finally collapsed after the outbreak of the Great Depression in October 1929. Kwik's business in Hong Kong also crumbled. In January 1935, he passed away in Taiwan and KHT was declared bankrupt a few days afterwards.

Commercial resilience and crisis management in the 1930s are the focus of chapter 6, in the context of general economic trends of that period. The author explores, as examples, Internatio, which successfully expanded the number of goods it traded, and Margo-Redjo, a Chinese coffee firm in Central Java that developed strategies for diversifying its products and merchandise.

This book is very successful in its vivid description of Dutch and Chinese business activities, due to the use of abundant archival records. Meanwhile, several questions could be raised on the concepts and methods of research. The meaning of “Dutch commerce and Chinese merchants” is not clear enough. Use of the term “Dutch commerce” is limited to import trade and credit supply to Chinese traders. Did a commercial relationship not exist between Dutch exports of agricultural products and the Chinese intermediary trade? Second, the author only used sources written in the Latin alphabet. By making use of Chinese and/or Japanese sources, we might be able to expand and enrich the information on the Chinese merchants in question.