How Generations Matter

Editorial illustration on how pro-colonial bias still shapes history

For BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review's essay on how successive generations of historians have written about Dutch colonialism, imperialism and decolonization, I illustrated the idea rather than the history itself. A 17th-century Dutch official, framed by a colonial jungle, disgorges an endless scroll from his mouth. Both the primary sources from the colonial period and much of the history written about it since carry a pro-colonial bias. This bias still shapes how we interpret the facts today.