Book Description

The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) was for a period of 200 years responsible for the navigation material for the journey between the Netherlands and the Far East and the inter-Asian trade. This book presents a never published before overview of chart material used on a VOC ship. The introduction provides information on the history of the VOC, the chart makers, the routes, and the navigation and instruments. All navigation charts of the VOC in the seventeenth and eighteenth century are drawn on vellum, and described and analyzed in an illustrated cartobibliography. Extracts of the 'groot-journalen' of the 'Kamer Amsterdam' are also included, providing a unique view of the total expenses of the VOC on navigation. Sailing for the East is part ten of the Utrecht Studies of the History of Cartography. Includes 600 full color images, CD-ROM with appendices.Gunter Schilder graduated from Vienna University and has worked in the Netherlands at the Utrecht University on the history of cartography since 1971. In 1981 he was appointed professor of the history of cartography, a position he continued until his retirement in 2005. Schilder has written numerous publications on the history of Dutch cartography and discoveries, and as a result has agumented the knowledge of and appreciation for Dutch cartography in its Golden AgeHans D. Kok attended the Dutch Government Civil Aviation Flying Training School and later joined KLM- Royal Dutch Airlines. His interest in navigation and maps stems from his early days of navigating across oceans and polar areas, practising the old techniques, using sextants and other specific navigational instruments. His map collection comprises maps and charts from 1560 till 1800, focusing on the sea-routes from Amsterdam to Jakarta, formerly Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies. He is currently on the Board of Editors of Caert-Thresoor in Holland, and is the Chairman of IMCoS, the International Map Collectors' Society in London.