Piet Hagen

Pieter Jacobus Hagen is a Dutch journalist and non-fiction author, who started his career as a reporter for the national newspaper Trouw in 1967. Later he served as teacher and dean of the School of Journalism in Utrecht (1983–1995), editor-in-chief of De Journalist/Villamedia (1995–2002), and columnist for NRC Handelsblad (2003–2005). In 2010, he published a biography of Dutch politician Pieter Jelles Troelstra, for which he was awarded the triennial Dr. Joast Halbertsmaprijs in the Dutch province of Friesland in 2012. His overview of colonial wars in Indonesia (2018) offers a new perspective on the past five centuries: military violence was the backbone of colonialism.