Pieter Nicolaas Kuiper, The Early Dutch Sinologists. A Study of their Training in Holland and China and their Functions in the Netherlands Indies (1854-1900), PhD Thesis, Leiden University, The Netherlands, 2015, 2 vols., 1035 pages, 45 illustrations, 19 appendices, 4 indexes. ISBN/EAN: 978-90-71256-45-5

P. N. Kuiper’s thesis has the great merit of unveiling the singularity of the first forty-odd years of Dutch Sinology, which unlike that of other European countries was not directed towards China, but to the management of the Chinese communities in the Netherlands Indies. In 1848, a change in the administration of justice at home and in the colony had a far-reaching effect on the legal position of the Chinese in the colonial possessions, since the Governor-General was authorized to declare pa.