The World and The Netherlands: A Global History from a Dutch Perspective - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1350191922 ISBN 13: 9781350191921

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023

Synopsis

This is the first book to examine the history of the country in a way that connects global processes to local developments. Taking account of social, political and economic dynamics over the last thousand years, the book addresses key questions that get to the heart of the Netherlands' role in the world, both historically and in more recent times:

· Why did the 'West' become such a significant actor in the world, and what part did the Netherlands play?
· What were the driving forces in state-formation, and in what respects and why did the Netherlands take a different path to most of Europe?
· How did globalisation impact economic structures and socio-cultural life, and how did the Netherlands react to these new challenges?
· How did this very Christian and bourgeois nation develop into a flagship for liberal tolerance?

The book carefully balances a wider investigation of these issues with close inspections of how ordinary people experienced the changes they prompted. It also provide a convincing, judicious assessment of the ebbs and flows of this small country's global influence over time: prominent as a Golden Age economic powerhouse, colonial power, and bastion of political freedom in some eras, and yet impotent on the world stage at others. Supplemented with 35 images, 10 maps, a wealth of text boxes, charts and tables, as well as a companion website, this book is the definitive history of the Netherlands in a global context.

About this title

About the Authors

Marjolein 't Hart is Head of the History Research Department of the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands in The Hague, Netherlands and Professor of the History of State Formation in Global Perspective at VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands. She is the author The Dutch Wars of Independence (2014) and the editor of Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe (2008) and A Financial History of the Netherlands 1550-1990 (2010).

Manon van der Heijden is Academic Director of the Institute of History and Professor of Comparative Urban History at Leiden University, Netherlands. She is the author of Women and Crime in Early Modern Holland (2016) and the editor of Women's Criminality in Europe, 1600-1914 (2020) and The Uses of Justice in Comparative Perspective (2019).

Karel Davids is Full Professor Emeritus of Economic and Social History at VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is the author of Global Ocean of Knowledge, 1660-1860 (Bloomsbury, 2020), Religion, Technology and the Great and Little Divergences: China and Europe Compared, c. 700 - 1800 (2013) and The Rise and Decline of Dutch Technological Leadership (2008).

Lex Heerma van Voss is research fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and Professor Emeritus of the History of Social Security at Utrecht University.

Leo Lucassen is Director of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and Professor of Global Labour and Migration History at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350191922
• ISBN 13: 9781350191921
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384
• Editor: Hart Marjolein 't, Heijden Manon Van Der, Davids Karel, Voss Lex Heerma Van, Lucassen Leo, Touwen Jeroen