Conducts research and collects data on the global history of labour, workers, and labour relations

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Economic Growth and Institutional Change in Indonesia in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Background and aimThe `First Conference on Indonesia's Modern Economic History, 1815-1990' was held at the Indonesian Academy of Sciences in Jakarta on 1-4 October 1991 (for proceedings see Lindblad... [Event]
A Socialist in the Dutch East Indies
The first socialist ever to set foot ashore the Dutch East Indies was Henri Hubertus van Kol (1852-1925). In 1876 Van Kol, who had been an early member of the First International, started his career... [Image gallery]
Between Ambon and Amsterdam
During the summer of 2001 the publicist and journalist Herman Keppy discovered two steamer trunks in a fully stacked room in the Dutch town of Alkmaar. The trunks contained the photo collection and... [Image gallery]
Elections in Indonesia
On April 5 2004, five years after the elections in 1999, Indonesia elected a new parliament and new regional councils. For about 147 million Indonesians qualified to vote this was the first time they... [Image gallery]
In Search of Silenced Voices
The collection In Search of Silenced Voices contains interviews with Indonesian exiles recorded by Hersri Setiawan and deposited at the IISH. Hersri (born in Yogyakarta in 1936) studied sociology at... [Image gallery]
Mohammad Hatta, Muslim and western intellectual
"I do not admire the practices of Western democracies, but I do hope that the spirit of democracy will win in the end." Mohammad Hatta, leader of the Indonesian nationalists and first vice president... [Image gallery]
Publishing house De Brug - Djambatan
In the late 1940s (following World War II) Henk van Randwijk (journalist and editor-in-chief of the Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland) and his fellow war-resistance fighter Cees de Koning (director of Vrij... [Image gallery]
Jacob Brandsteder and the suppression of the free press
In connection with World Press Freedom Day, the IISH wishes to call attention to Jacob Andries Brandsteder's (1887-1986) forced departure from the Dutch East Indies in 1919. He had to leave the... [Image gallery]
Posters by Taring Padi
In 2002 the IISH Asia Department acquired a collection of 28 Indonesian posters created by Taring Padi, a group of Indonesian artists from Yogyakarta, Java.Since 1998 a group of young Indonesian... [Image gallery]
New Guinea, Rugged and Humid
Not long ago, the eastern border of the Netherlands was to be found in New Guinea, the country of the Papuans, at a longitude of 141o east and a latitude just south of the equator.Officially, it did... [Collection highlight]

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