For the Netherlands, the oldest colonial power in the region, the consequences were particularly traumatic. The Dutch East Indies, and the trading company that had developed them, were part of the national myth, a direct link to the Golden Age and a symbol of Dutch commercial and seafaring glory. It was also widely assumed, especially in the gloomy, impoverished post-war years, that the raw materials of the Indies—rubber especially—would be the Netherlands’ economic salvation. Yet within two years of the Japanese defeat, the Dutch were once again at war: the Dutch-held territories of
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