The Importance of Being a Good Employee: Georg Everhard Rumphius, the Dutch East India Company, and Knowledge in the Late Seventeenth Century

This article analyses the complex interrelation between the VOC and scholarship by investigating the relationship between the Company and Georg Everhard Rumphius (1627-1702). First, it will consider the line Rumphius drew between himself as scholar and as a VOC employee. Secondly, the Company’s policy of secrecy is scrutinised in order to show how and to what extent it was in conflict with the habit of sharing knowledge and objects in the Republic of Letters. The third facet examines how the VOC context influenced Rumphius’s scholarly work and how his scholarly ambitions shaped some of his occ... Mehr ...