Despite its small size and population, the Dutch Republic functioned as the hub of world trade, shipping, and finance for nearly two centuries. This is the first detailed account of that hegemony from its sixteenth-century origins to the final collapse of the Dutch trading system in the eighteenth century. The economic structure of the early modern world was such that the Dutch Republic, particularly Amsterdam, was able to dominate the world economy to a far greater degree than any commercial power before or since. Using archival and secondary sources, this book explains how such a small nation was able to achieve and sustain this ascendancy for so long. In particular, Professor Israel emphasizes the interaction between Dutch commercial activity in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East, and its penetration of nearby European markets. - ;Introduction; The origins of Dutch world-trade hegemony; The breakthrough to world primacy, 1590-1609; The Twelve Years' Truce, 1609-1621; The Dutch and the crisis of the world economy, 1621-1647; The zenith, 1647-1672; Beyond the zenith, 1672-1700; The Dutch world entrep--ocirc--;t and the conflict of the Spanish succession, 1700-1713; Decline relative and absolute, 1713-1740; Afterglow and final collapse; Conclusion -

First published in 1963. This volume is an historical look at the succession of war and trade of the West Indies from 1739 to 1763, combining law, politics, narrative and the structure of the society.

The author draws on a dazzling variety of archival and printed sources.... The Dutch Moment is a signal contribution to the field.―Renaissance Quarterly In The Dutch Moment, Wim Klooster shows how the Dutch built and eventually lost an Atlantic empire that stretched from the homeland in the United Provinces to the Hudson River and from Brazil and the Caribbean to the African Gold Coast. The fleets and armies that fought for the Dutch in the decades-long war against Spain included numerous foreigners, largely drawn from countries in northwestern Europe. Likewise, many settlers of Dutch colonies were born in other parts of Europe or the New World. The Dutch would not have been able to achieve military victories without the native alliances they carefully cultivated. Indeed, the Dutch Atlantic was quintessentially interimperial, multinational, and multiracial. At the same time, it was an empire entirely designed to benefit the United Provinces. The pivotal colony in the Dutch Atlantic was Brazil, half of which was conquered by the Dutch West India Company. Its brief lifespan notwithstanding, Dutch Brazil (1630–1654) had a lasting impact on the Atlantic world. The scope of Dutch warfare in Brazil is hard to overestimate—this was the largest interimperial conflict of the seventeenth-century Atlantic. Brazil launched the Dutch into the transatlantic slave trade, a business they soon dominated. At the same time, Dutch Brazil paved the way for a Jewish life in freedom in the Americas after the first American synagogues opened their doors in Recife. In the end, the entire colony eventually reverted to Portuguese rule, in part because Dutch soldiers, plagued by perennial poverty, famine, and misery, refused to take up arms. As they did elsewhere, the Dutch lost a crucial colony because of the empire’s systematic neglect of the very soldiers on whom its defenses rested. After the loss of Brazil and, ten years later, New Netherland, the Dutch scaled back their political ambitions in the Atlantic world. Their American colonies barely survived wars with England and France. As the imperial dimension waned, the interimperial dimension gained strength. Dutch commerce with residents of foreign empires thrived in a process of constant adaptation to foreign settlers’ needs and mercantilist obstacles.

The most comprehensive account yet of the human past from prehistory to the present.

A Sly and Dangerous Fellow chronicles the life and adventures of Thomas Violet, an Englishman who lived from 1609-1662. During the course of his tumultuous life Violet was a goldsmith, a spy, a prisoner of war during the English Civil War, a traitor to both sides, a major economic theorist, an anti-Semite who nearly drove the Jews of England out of the country, and a suicide. Violet’s life consisted of one unbelievable escapade after another. He was a scoundrel who used his knowledge of the financial markets of his day to legally extort money out of people in scheme after scheme for nearly thirty years. Along the way, he was caught up in the English Civil War and interacted with many of the major players – he knew and worked for King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, and King Charles II. In desperate times, both King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell were willing to use the unsavory Violet to help solve the financial crisis both men faced as rulers of England. Violet’s knowledge of the silver trade, in particular, would bring untold riches to Oliver Cromwell. However, Charles II had no need of Violet, and, when Violet could not convince Charles II to extort money from England’s Jews, Violet committed suicide rather than face the world without a royal patron. Readers will be fascinated—and outraged—by Violet’s actions.

This study examines the wholesale trade in sugar from Brazil to markets in Europe. The principal market was northwestern Europe, but for much of the time between 1550 and 1630 Portugal was drawn into the conflict between Habsburg Spain and the Dutch Republic. In spite of political obstacles, the trade persisted because it was not subject to monopolies and was relatively lightly regulated and taxed. The investment structure was highly international, as Portugal and northwestern Europe exchanged communities of merchants who were mobile and inter-imperial in both their composition and organization. This conclusion challenges an imperial or mercantilist perspective of the Atlantic economy in its earliest phases.

This volume surveys the crucial role of cities in shaping cultural exchange in early modern Europe.