This thesis analyzes American images of the Dutch since the second half of the 19th century. Works by John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877), Douglas Campbell (1840-1893), and William Elliot Griffis (1843-1928) are explored to assess the transformation in American thinking about the Dutch of the Netherlands and Dutch-Americans. These writers celebrate the Dutch as proto-Americans, while using the characteristically American typological approach to history to make sense of themselves and their country. Thesis. (Series: MasteRResearch - Vol. 5)

This lively collection of essays examines the link between public opinion and the development of changing 'Netherlandish' identities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

No society can function without laws, that set of established practices and expectations that guide the way people get along with one another and relate to ruling authorities. Although much has been written about the English roots of American law and jurisprudence, little attention has been paid until recently to the legacy left by the Dutch. In Opening Statements, a broad spectrum of eminent scholars examine the legal heritage that New Netherland bequeathed to New York in the seventeenth century. Even after the transfer of the colony to England placed New York under English Common Law rather than Dutch Roman Law, the Dutch system of jurisprudence continued to influence evolving American concepts of governance, liberty, women's rights, and religious freedom in ways that still resonate in today's legal culture. "Opening Statements addresses only a short chapter in the long history of America. Its judgments will not be without dispute, but then, as the eminent Dutch historian Pieter Geyl once wrote: 'History is an argument without end.' There can be no doubt, however, as to the value of those seeds of freedom that were deeply planted in New Netherland. They produced a revolutionary harvest that causes us to appreciate what the Dutch inspired. A small country, the Netherlands—yes—but always a powerful ally for America in the unending struggle for a well-ordered society where freedom and justice prevail." — from the Foreword by William J. vanden Heuvel