Dutch Empire | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2018-11-24

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Dutch Empire

Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.

Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain

Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.

You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuKfABj2eGyjH3ntPxp4YeQ

You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
https://github.com/nodef/wikipedia-tts



"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
- Socrates



SUMMARY
=======
The Dutch Empire (Dutch: Het Nederlandse Koloniale Rijk) comprised the overseas colonies, enclaves, and outposts controlled and administered by Dutch chartered companies, mainly the Dutch West India and the Dutch East India Company, and subsequently by the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), and the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands since 1815.
It was initially a trade-based entity which derived most of its influence from merchant enterprise and Dutch control of international maritime shipping routes through strategically placed outposts, rather than expansive territorial ventures. With a few notable exceptions, the majority of the Dutch Empire's overseas holdings consisted of coastal forts, factories, and port settlements with varying degrees of incorporation of their hinterlands and surrounding regions. Dutch chartered companies often dictated that their possessions be kept as confined as possible to avoid unnecessary expense, and while some such as the Dutch Cape Colony (modern South Africa) and Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia) expanded anyway due to the pressure of independently minded Dutch colonists, others remained undeveloped, isolated trading centres dependent on an indigenous host nation. This was reflective of the fact that the primary network of the Dutch Empire was commercial exchange as opposed to sovereignty over a homogeneous landmass.The imperial ambitions of the Dutch were bolstered by the strength of their existing shipping industry, as well as the key role they played in the expansion of maritime trade between Europe and the Orient. Because small European trading companies often lacked the capital or the manpower for large scale operations, the States General chartered the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch East India Company in the early seventeenth century. These were considered the largest and most extensive maritime trading companies at the time, and once held a virtual monopoly on strategic European shipping routes westward through the Southern Hemisphere around South America through the Strait of Magellan, and eastward around Africa, past the Cape of Good Hope. The companies' domination of global commerce contributed greatly to a commercial revolution and a cultural flowering in the Netherlands known as the Dutch Golden Age. In their search for new trade passages between Asia and Europe, Dutch navigators explored and charted vast regions such as New Zealand, Tasmania, and parts of the eastern coast of North America.In the 18th century, the Dutch Empire began to decline as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, in which it lost a number of its colonial possessions and trade monopolies to the British Empire. Nevertheless, the main portions of the empire survived until the advent of global decolonisation following World War II (1939–1945), namely the East Indies (Indonesia) and Dutch Guiana (Surinam). Three former colonial territories in the West Indies islands around the Caribbean Sea—Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten—are retained as constituent countries represented within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.