An example of how the book was received in the Dutch press can be found in an article written by Beb Vuyk for De Vrije Katheder:

'In recent years, the display windows of our bookshops have been flooded with large numbers of picture books about the Dutch Indies. Many of these were beautifully edited and contained a wealth of good photographs. They already belonged to the past at the time they were published. They presented images from the colonial Dutch Indies, where the Dutch ruled in their cool, modern houses, their large factories, their excellently organised companies and their well-equipped laboratories. In this established order, the Indonesian people took up the place assigned to them, as coolies, native clerks, gardeners or drivers. They were praised liberally for their performance of these duties as well as for their artistic talents as dancers, woodcutters or silversmiths, safe and innocuous as living museum pieces of great value. Cas Oorthuys' photomontages show them in a new light. A nascent state, a state of living, self-conscious people, people like us, working in inspired association.' (2)

An example of the kind of books described above by Beb Vuijk is Gordel van Smaragd (The Indonesian Archipelago), also published by Uitgeverij Contact in Amsterdam, that appeared one year before Een staat in wording. (3)