17th Century Dutch Republic

Early modern Amsterdam was an ultra-modern city, laid out conforming to the triple demand of functionality, beauty and profit; a city that takes a unique place in European urban history because of its location, design, and impressive scale. 'Metropolis in the Making' tells the story of Amsterdam becoming one of the largest cities in Europe in the seventeenth century. Amsterdam was one of the cradles of capitalism, but at the same time one of the most meticulously planned cities in the world.
After the Fall of Antwerp in 1585, Amsterdam took over its position as the main trade hub in northwestern Europe. The city grew rapidly to become the central harbour town – and one of the largest European cities. The boom in harbours and industry went hand in hand with an explosive population growth. This resulted in two huge city extensions in 1613 and 1663, multiplying the territory of Amsterdam by five. Around the old town, the now famous ring of canals was constructed. Beyond this residential zone mixed-use and industrial districts were laid out, with a series of harbour islands along the borders of the IJ. This book deals with the question how Amsterdam’s administration managed to realize these immense projects from the viewpoints of urban design, infrastructure, logistics, and finance.
The first part of this book is dedicated to the extension projects. A thorough analysis of all remaining administrative archives and a great many cartographic documents has enabled the author to reconstruct the decision process about the scale, design, and realization of the extensions. The second part contains chapters concerning land use, public space and water management. 'Metropolis in the Making' tells the story of one of the cradles of early modern capitalism and at the same time one of the most meticulously planned cities in the world.

La ville d’Utrecht, aux Pays-Bas, siège épiscopal jusqu’à la Réforme, devint au XVIIe siècle un bastion à la fois de l’orthodoxie réformée et du catholicisme, quand bien même l’Église réformée y disposait d’un statut privilégié comme dans l’ensemble des Provinces-Unies. C’est à cette étonnante survie du catholicisme, y compris dans les lieux de culte et dans des institutions politiques, qu’est consacré cet ouvrage, ainsi qu’à la coexistence confessionnelle qui se développa entre confessions concurrentes. L’analyse met en lumière la cristallisation des identités confessionnelles au cours de la seconde moitié du siècle et l’impact des relations internationales sur les tensions confessionnelles, mais aussi l’intégration entre membres de confessions différentes et la convivialité de la vie quotidienne, qui renvoie à la pluralité des identités sociales. Cet ouvrage apporte ainsi une contribution originale à l’étude de la coexistence religieuse dans l’Europe moderne, une thématique riche en enseignements pour le présent.

The city of Utrecht, in the Low Countries, was a diocesan see until the Reformation. In the seventeenth century, it became a bulwark of Reformed orthodoxy and of Catholicism, despite the priviledged status enjoyed by the Reformed Church in Utrecht as well in the whole United Provinces. This book investigates the surprising survival of Catholicism, as well as the coexistence that developed between competing denominations.

Existe-t-il un État aussi familier et en même temps aussi méconnu que les Provinces-Unies à l’époque moderne ? Qui n’a jamais entendu parler des navires chargés d’épices de retour d’Asie, des hôtels particuliers le long des canaux d’Amsterdam, des œuvres de Rembrandt ou des polders conquis sur les flots ? On sait moins que cet État, né au XVIe siècle, sut consentir des efforts inouïs pour résister aux plus grandes armées, qu’un équilibre politique reposant sur des structures fragmentées surmonta toutes les crises, qu’il fut un dynamique foyer d’immigration, que l’agriculture y était prospère, qu’il abrita la société la plus urbanisée et la plus alphabétisée d’Europe, et que l’imprimerie tournait à plein régime pour alimenter l’Europe entière.
Cette synthèse propose de fournir au lecteur des clés d’analyse de l’histoire moderne des Pays-Bas, en abordant toutes les facettes de ce prétendu « miracle ». Le plan, à la fois chronologique et thématique, tourne le dos à la coupure contestable entre Siècle d’Or et déclin ultérieur et s’efforce de restituer toute la place de cet État, dont la destinée est essentielle à la compréhension de l’histoire européenne et mondiale.


Thierry Allain, agrégé d’histoire, maître de conférences à l’université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III
Andreas Nijenhuis-Bescher, docteur de la VU Amsterdam, ancien membre de l’Institut Universitaire Européen de Florence, Associate Professor Dutch Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies à Séoul
Romain Thomas, ancien élève de l’École normale supérieure de la rue d’Ulm, agrégé d’histoire, maître de conférences en histoire de l’art moderne à l’université Paris Nanterre

> Un extrait est consultable sur le site d'Armand Colin. Voir lien ci-dessous :
https://liseuse-hachette.fr/file/116595?fullscreen=1&editeur=Armand%20Colin

Tegen het einde van de zestiende eeuw begon Amsterdam met het planten van bomen langs grachten en op pleinen. Amsterdam was niet de eerste Hollandse stad die dat deed. Bomen werden tijdens de zeventiende-eeuwse stadsuitbreidingen een standaardonderdeel van de inrichting van grachten en pleinen. Door de schaal van de nieuwe stad leidde dat tot de grootste systematische aanplant van stedelijk groen die zich ooit had voorgedaan. In dit artikel worden het stadsgroen en de motieven voor de aanplant behandeld.

Cette étude trouve son origine dans un double étonnement. En effet, les années 1680-1740 sont marquées par la publication aux Provinces-Unies de nombreux ouvrages en français qualifiés d’« historiques » et consacrés à l’actualité politique européenne immédiate et à son analyse. Ce phénomène trouve sa plus belle illustration dans la parution en juillet 1686, à Leyde, de l’Histoire abrégée de l’Europe, premier mensuel d’analyse politique en langue française. L’apparition de cette nouvelle forme éditoriale vouée à un bel avenir, que je désigne sous le qualificatif de « mercures historiques et politiques », s’accompagne par ailleurs de l’impression d’Histoires consacrées aux événements les plus récents mais aussi de collections diplomatiques, recueils qui compilent des documents ayant trait aux relations internationales. Or, ces trois sortes d’ouvrages consacrés aux événements politiques récents sont rédigées par les mêmes auteurs : une douzaine d’exilés français, installés en Hollande, qui n’avaient rien publié avant leur départ de France.
Analyser ce corpus – appréhendé comme une « histoire du temps présent européen » – permet de saisir comment, dans la Hollande des années 1680-1740, publier l’actualité politique est devenu une profession. Celle-ci se caractérise par des pratiques d’écriture et par des compétences valorisables auprès du public grâce à une diversification des supports éditoriaux, et auprès des autorités politiques par l’exercice de fonctions d’informateur, d’historiographe et plus largement, d’expert en écriture politique. En observant comment ces hommes ont participé à la constitution d’un marché européen de l’information politique, cette étude analyse non seulement les procédés grâce auxquels ces journalistes ont contribué à rendre publics la politique et ses instruments, mais elle interroge aussi les implications qu’un tel phénomène éditorial peut induire sur le rapport des lecteurs à l’action des gouvernements.

The first systematic translation of the Bible into Portuguese was prepared over the second half of the seventeenth century in the Dutch East Indies by the Portuguese Calvinist João Ferreira A. d’Almeida. Existent historiography tracing the context of its production has been limited either to biographical analyses or typographical surveys of its several editions. Primary sources that correspond to the obstinate Catholic versus Calvinist confrontation underlying its elaboration have been overlooked. We thus assume that only from a deeper analysis of polemical works written within this doctrinal clash is it possible to better understand the historical significance of that unique biblical translation.

In the seventeenth century, lobbying was a primary tool for both ordinary people and organized interests to shape institutions. Lobbying could (and should!) be studied in relation to any topic in history and it is by no means unique to the Dutch colonial experience, but the Dutch West India Company (WIC) colony in North America offers a unique insight of a world and society inside a pressure cooker. In the few decades that the WIC colony existed it was subject to several major changes; from the colony, to the Company, and even to the highest political levels.
This paper answers the question how lobbying individuals shaped institutions through structuration. It starts by explaining how lobbying is defined, and how it has a place within wider theoretical and historiographical debates. It then illustrates a distinct type of lobbying, soft lobbying, in and from the WIC colony in New Netherland through source based research, focusing on issues of authority.

The "Politike Discoursen" are without doubt one of the most conspicuous fruits of Dutch Machiavellism. They are the only work written in Dutch which with some justification can be assimilated to the genre of the political commentary: a genre that flourished in Italy and in other countries in the last decades of the sixteenth and in the first half of the seventeenth century, and that owes it very existence to Machiavelli and to his "Discorsi".
(The article is in Dutch, but has at its end a summary in English).

Where have all the women gone? It can be difficult, sometimes, to find evidence of female participation in the arts and culture of the early modern period. This short essay explores how we can locate women and their participation by approaching our research differently.

This paper discusses the intended argument and conceptual backgrounds of two satirical engravings published during the Truce Conflicts in the Dutch Republic (ca. 1611-1621), with a special focus on the use of fish imagery and its political implications.

CASTELNOVI Michele, Una descrizione geografica «burgerlijk»: i Paesi Bassi secondo Lodovico Guicciardini, in «Horti Hesperidum», 2018, n. 1, pp. 69-90 link= http://www.horti-hesperidum.com/hh/lodovico-guicciardini-nelleuropa-del-cinquecento-horti-hesperidum-2018-1/ in Lodovico Guicciardini nell'Europa del Cinquecento.Letteratura, arte e geografia tra italia e Paesi Bassi, a cura di Dina ARISTODEMO e Carmelo OCCHIPINTI, in "HH", 2018, n. 1, Roma, Universitalia, pp. 69-90 (ISSN 2239-4141).

"Le territoire d’Amsterdam a plus que quintuplé entre 1585 et 1663. Cette croissance a, au travers des siècles, attiré l’attention des historiens comme des urbanistes. Ils ont passé au crible fin le développement de la ville au XVIIe siècle, et ce sous de nombreux angles. Deux aspects les ont
particulièrement intéressés : l’échelle de la croissance et la planification. Ce dernier aspect a, à partir du XIXe siècle, été étudié du point de vue du paysage urbain. La ville était considérée comme une composition scénographique géniale, comme le Versailles du Nord. Plus tard, le
regard s’est surtout porté sur le plan de ville au sol. Amsterdam était considérée comme l’incarnation de la ‘città ideale’, le summum de la planification.
Dans cette étude, nous nous baserons sur une idée plus pragmatique de l’urbanisme. La ville idéale, théorique, cède la place à la ville réelle et, par voie de conséquence, à la ville optimale : une réalité physique rétive dotée d’une dynamique spatiale et sociale imprévisible, laquelle est aménagée et gérée le mieux possible en vue de son utilisation par les autorités municipales en fonction de la situation du paysage et des eaux, des opinions prédominantes, des connaissances techniques, de la méthodologie urbanistique et de l’instrumentation disponible."

Entre 1701 et 1703, au début de la guerre de Succession espagnole, Henry Bentinck (1682-1726), vicomte Woodstock, et son gouverneur huguenot, Paul Rapin de Thoyras (1661-1725), entreprennent un voyage pédagogique – le Grand Tour – qui devait les conduire de La Haye dans les Provinces-Unies à travers les États allemands jusqu’en Italie. Nous éditons la centaine de lettres connues de la correspondance qu’ils entretiennent au cours de ce voyage, avec le père du jeune homme, Hans Willem Bentinck (1649-1709), comte de Portland. Ces lettres apportent des informations sur tous les aspects de la vie quotidienne des voyageurs – sur les coutumes des Cours et des villes où ils séjournent, sur les bruits qui couraient à l’époque sur les événements de la guerre, sur les contraintes du voyage, sur les aléas du courrier et sur les rapports personnels difficiles entre les trois correspondants. Notre introduction porte sur ces différents aspects de la vie des voyageurs et sur la notion de « vie privée » que véhicule la correspondance. Nous ajoutons à ce corpus deux lettres inédites de Rapin-Thoyras à Woodstock de l’année 1721 ainsi que plusieurs lettres d’aristocrates qui envoient à Portland leurs commentaires sur le comportement de son fils.

Michaël Green est chercheur à l’Université de Lodz en Pologne, et chercheur affilié au Centre d’études sur la vie privée [Centre for Privacy Studies] de la Fondation Nationale danoise de la Recherche à l’Université de Copenhague. Ses travaux portent, entre autres, sur les minorités religieuses à l’époque moderne, sur l’histoire de l’éducation et sur la notion et la pratique de la vie privée. Parmi ses publications : The Huguenot Jean Rou (1638-1711): Scholar, Educator, Civil Servant (Honoré Champion, 2015), et les articles « The Orange-Nassau Family at the Educational Crossroads of the Stadtholder’s Position (1584 – 1711) » (2019) et « Bridging the English Channel: Huguenots in the Educational Milieu of the English Upper Class » (2018).

Traduction de l’anglais original de l’introduction et de l’apparat critique par Bertrand Marceau, maître de conférences en  histoire moderne à l’université de Reims.

The retail of alcohol was so central to the economy and society of the Cape of Good Hope during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that it earned the nickname “tavern of two oceans”. This retail business was organised on the so-called
lease or monopoly ('pacht') system whereby a person paid the authorities for the right to sell a certain type of alcohol for a given period in a specific area. This article traces the intellectual origins of this system of alcohol retail at the Cape during the VOC era. It does so by tracing both the idea of using leases or monopolies, first in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, and by investigating the ways in which various products, including alcohol, were leased off in the largest and most significant of the VOC’s colonies, Batavia, during the first half of the seventeenth century. It is demonstrated that the ways in which alcohol retail and other economic activities were organised at the Cape developed out of practices established elsewhere in the seventeenth-century Dutch world, but that the exact nature of the system was adapted to unique local circumstances at the early Cape. As such, this comparative article serves as an illustration that developments at the Cape in such a central sphere as business practices were the product of both global and local forces and influences.

The Revolt in the Netherlands erupted in 1566 and tore apart the Low Countries. In Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566-1700 Jasper van der Steen explains how public memories of the Revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands in the South and the Dutch Republic in the North diverged and became the objects of fierce contestation in domestic political struggles, on both sides of the border and throughout the seventeenth century.

Against widespread assumptions about the supposed modernity of cultural memory Memory Wars argues that early modern public memory did not require the presence of state actors, nationalism and modern mass media in order to play a role of political importance in both North and South.

Available! see http://www.brill.com/products/book/memory-wars-low-countries-1566-1700

The Theses LVI belong to a series of hitherto unpublished early manuscripts of the Dutch humanist and jurisconsult Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) that were acquired by the University of Leiden in 1864. It is not certain when the Theses were written, but preliminary research on the physical manuscript and the sources cited indicate two possible windows. The first is around 1602-1605, that is roughly at a time when Grotius was also working on his Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De Iure Praedae Commentarius). The second dating places the genesis of the manuscrbipt around 1613-1615.
In the context of Grotius’ writings, the Theses LVI assume an important position for several reasons: They raise questions about state formation, the duty of citizens to the state and the right of political resistance in far greater detail than in any other work of the celebrated Dutch humanist. The Theses LVI also feature important reading notes that yield priceless insights into the sources that Grotius directly consulted and their influence on his ideas. The manuscript grants modern scholars a unique glimpse into the working mind of its author. Evidence points not only to the ferocious haste with which Grotius wrote his works, but also the occasional sloppiness of his reading and research habits."""

A French pastor in the service of the Dutch Republic. The ministry of Samuel Des Marets in Maastricht (1632-1636).
Samuel Des Marets (1599-1673), born in France and practicing the reformed pastoral ministry in the kingdom during his early years, sees his career taking an early turn, causing him problems of confessional and political identities. It’s obvious in the controversy, but also in his use of ecclesiastical discipline. Minister and professor of theology in the independent principality of Sedan in the mid-1620s, he passes under the protection of its regent, Elizabeth of Nassau, and her son, the prince Frederic-Maurice, Duke of Bouillon, himself in the entourage of his uncle, the Stadtholder Frederick Henry. Established by the States General and on the recommendation of André Rivet in Maastricht, after the taking of the city by the Dutch Republic (1632), he exercises his ministry under conditions which are in certain aspects close to those of France at the same time (controversy, coexistence between legal confessional communities), but marked by original elements (co-sovereignty of the prince-bishop of Liège, Spanish threat, difficulties of integration of his church into the Synod). All this places him in a situation of in-between, which he skilfully knows how to play, alternately using the advantages of his status of French and those of protégé of the States General. He does so for personal reasons, but also to propose the model of a combative pastor, and to consolidate a Church he has established and which he wants to protect from Catholic attacks. Samuel Des Marets maintains both his French culture and the political service of the Dutch Republic, until he leaves Maastricht for’s-Hertogenbosch (1636). He develops an ambiguous position that reveals many aspects of the pastoral ministry in a newly established church on a confessional front during the Thirty Years’ War.

Un pasteur français au service des Provinces-Unies Le ministère de Samuel Des Marets à Maastricht (1632-1636)
Né en France et exerçant le ministère pastoral réformé dans le royaume au cours de ses jeunes années, Samuel Des Marets (1599-1673) voit sa carrière prendre un virage précoce qui lui pose des problèmes d’identités confessionnelle et politique, dans la controverse, mais aussi dans son usage de la discipline ecclésiastique. Ministre et professeur de théologie dans la principauté indépendante de Sedan au milieu des années 1620, il passe sous la protection de sa régente, Élisabeth de Nassau, et de son fils, le prince Frédéric-Maurice, duc de Bouillon, lui-même proche de son oncle, le stathouder Frédéric-Henri. Établi par les États-Généraux et sur la recommandation d’André Rivet à Maastricht après la prise de la ville par les Provinces-Unies (1632), il exerce son ministère dans des conditions par certains aspects proches de celles de la France à la même époque (controverse, coexistence entre des communautés confessionnelles légales), mais marquées par des éléments irréductibles (co-souveraineté du prince-évêque de Liège, menace espagnole, intégration heurtée de son Église au synode). Tout cela le place dans une situation d’entre-deux dont il sait habilement jouer, usant alternativement des avantages de son statut de Français et de ceux de protégé des États-Généraux. Il le fait pour des raisons personnelles, mais aussi pour proposer un modèle pastoral de combat et consolider une Église qu’il a établie et veut protéger des attaques catholiques. À la fois de culture française et au service politique des Provinces-Unies, Samuel Des Marets développe, jusqu’à son départ pour Bois-le-Duc (1636), une position ambiguë, mais qui nous révèle bien des aspects de l’exercice du ministère pastoral dans une Église fraîchement établie sur un front confessionnel durant la guerre de Trente Ans.

In 1637 veroverde de West-Indische Compagnie het fort Elmina en het gelijknamige plaatsje aan de toenmalige Goudkust. Van hieruit werd de Nederlandse aanwezigheid op de Afrikaanse Westkust uitgebreid ten koste van de Portugese dominantie. Vervolgens kwam de grootschalige slavenhandel onder de WIC op gang. Toch is de overname van Elmina niet bekend en bestaat er in de geschiedschrijving geen consensus over de aanleidingen, motieven, rolverdeling en gevolgen van de verovering. Vandaar dat dit onderzoek zich richt op de historische relevantie van de verovering aan de hand van de voornoemde deelonderwerpen. Ik maak gebruik van secundaire en primaire bronnen, waaronder vier nog niet eerder onderzochte brieven uit het archief. De slavernij is een maatschappelijk gevoelig onderwerp, wat het wetenschappelijk onderzoek tot dusver in de weg staat. De oorzaken van de tegenvallende slavenhandel in Elmina zijn pijnlijk. De overname van Elmina was het begin van een reeks veroveringen met verstrekkende gevolgen. Het bezit van de plaats zelf daarentegen wordt gewichtiger gemaakt dan het in werkelijkheid was.

This article provides, for the first time, an overview of all images (drawings
and prints) sent by the Dutch microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) to the Royal Society during their fifty-year long correspondence. Analyses of the images and close reading of the letters have led to an identification of three periods in which Leeuwenhoek worked together with artists. The first period (1673–1689) is characterized by the work of several draughtsmen as well as Leeuwenhoek’s own improving attempts to depict his observations. In the second period (1692–1712) Leeuwenhoek worked together with one unknown draughtsman, while the work in the third period (1713–1723) can now be attributed to the young draughtsman Willem vander Wilt. This article also shows how Leeuwenhoek did not only rely on draughtsmen for the depiction of his own observations, but rather, how he worked together with them in his workshop to observe, confirm, and witness microscopic experiments, replicating the collaborative working methods of the Royal Society in Delft.

Chap. 13. The end of the donor portrait in the Dutch Republic left a gap in the artistic repertoire of spiritual self-imagination. The absence of portraits in ecclesiastical environments, as part of a commemorative cult, has stimulated the rise of the autonomous biblical portrait historié in secular spaces. Since the rise of the Modern Devotion, being portrayed in a religious scene was a way to testify in person of one’s search for forgiveness, mercy and rapprochement to God. The primacy of Scripture and the “Word-oriented” visual culture of the Reformation, in connection to the Dutch Israel imagery, attested to the popularity of the biblical portrait historié in civic context. Biblical portraiture could be theologically legitimised on the basis of guidelines in commentaries on catechisms, although this does not explain its practical purpose. It has been argued that secularized mentality penetrated devotional art and destroyed it from within. It remains unclear whether or not a family portrait with a biblical subject a for private home actually differs in use from an altarpiece or other devotional works of art containing portraits. To attend to this matter, general questions about functionality and devotional practice of portraits need to be studied first. The debates about the Andachtsbild and the differences between private and public art also complicate an overall interpretation of the portrait historié.

Before the Reformation, Dutch artists were already aware of the symbolic relationship between subject matter and form (or function) of religious paintings. In the autonomous biblical portrait historié – i.e. the secularised type – form, figuration and fashion were often linked to the discussion on the functionality of religious art. Often one finds critial references to pious practises: e.g. the pseudo-donor portrait in Delff’s Jacob and Esau: a criticism on intercession of saints; or the fact that Fabritius’s centurion before Peter does not kneel in veneration of the apostle. Catholic defenses against the reproach of idolatry and reactions from Protestants make clear how portraiture and remembrance were viewed from a religious perspective. According to the Reformed view, there is an essential distinction between paintings in the church and those at the home because of a difference in use. Portraits were allowed at home according to Ursinus’s guidelines, that fitted seamlessly with Calvin’s approval of representations of visible creatures. In the Reformed restrictions of art, one can find further explanation for the success of the biblical portrait historié. Not only does this type of portrait only have a civic use, but it also meets all the requirements that were set for art. For it serves as a remembrance, not only of the portrayed, in the Paulinic sense, but also of the biblical story, while the image as a rule also contains a moralistic message.

The reasons given for portrayal as a specific biblical figure or participant in a biblical scene, mainly explain the choice of subject rather than the motivations for that identification. Reformed critiques of the phenomenon portrait historié have not been handed down, and its assessment can only be interpreted indirectly. In some catechetical texts dramatically performed roles are discussed, which may offer some insight into how this kind of role play in religious art was judged – though views differ widely. Biblical parallels and comparison between persons were often justified in an euhemeric way, because of the conformity with God. Both the perfectionist pursuit of conformity with Christ and the imitation of exemplary figures in calvinist sanctification can be seen as adaptations of the medieval imitatio Christi to the Reformed theology of predestination. By following in the footsteps of Old Testament forerunners, and by being portrayed as patriarchs and the people elect, the Dutch placed themselves, as it were, in the succession from the Old to the New Covenant. In the biblical portrait historié, the Christian actually portrays himself as a Christian; in Old Testament scenes without risk of a personal glorification, so as to disprove allegations of vainglory and idolatry. The analogy in Old Testament portraits histories was seldom based on individual parallels. The choice of subject seems to have been as important as the identification with a biblical figure. The autonomous biblical portrait historié is a painterly representation of the personal empathy of the people portrayed with the Dutch Israel. Inherent to the doctrine of predestination is that biblical figures, as representatives of the contemporary persons, are not actually the acting figures of the story, but God, who works in the form of the Holy Spirit, who reveals himself in Grace who remains invisible to the believer and the spectator.

13. Religieuze portretkunst in context 579
13.1. Het bijbelse portrait historié als gedachtenis 579
13.2. Nog één maal de bijbelse rol 598
13.3. Euhemerisme en gelijkvormigheid aan Christus in de zeventiende eeuw 601
13.4. Nawoord 605

Rembrandt werd al tijdens zijn leven in binnen- en buitenland beschouwd als een exceptioneel prentmaker en zijn etsen werden nog in de zeventiende eeuw gekarakteriseerd als apart, curieus en zelfs bizar, zoals we verderop nog zullen zien. Een deel van zijn geëtste oeuvre was bedoeld voor een kleine kring van prentconnaisseurs die oog hadden voor zijn referenties aan beroemde voorbeelden en die gretig zeldzame afdrukken verzamelden. Rembrandt 'schiep' voor hen proefstaten en maakte afdrukken op bijzondere papiersoorten. Hij was daarin uniek. De meeste van zijn collega-schilders zouden zelf nooit een prent maken, maar Rembrandts voorbeelden, onder wie Titiaan en Rubens, beseften wel dat de in veelvoud geproduceerde prenten instrumenteel konden zijn bij het vergroten van hun internationale reputatie en gaven daarom professionele graveurs opdracht hun schilderijen te reproduceren.

Mainstream historical accounts of the development of capitalism describe a process which is fundamentally European - a system that was born in the mills and factories of England or under the guillotines of the French Revolution. In this groundbreaking book, a very different story is told.

How the West Came to Rule offers a unique interdisciplinary and international historical account of the origins of capitalism. It argues that contrary to the dominant wisdom, capitalism’s origins should not be understood as a development confined to the geographically and culturally sealed borders of Europe, but the outcome of a wider array of global processes in which non-European societies played a decisive role. Through an examination of the uneven histories of Mongolian expansion, New World discoveries, Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry, the development of the Asian colonies and bourgeois revolutions, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu provide an account of how these diverse events and processes came together to produce capitalism.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Problem of Eurocentrism

Confronting the Problematic of Sociohistorical Difference

What is Capitalism?

What Is Geopolitics? 

Chapter 1 The Transition Debate: Theories and Critique

Introduction

The ‘Commercialization Model’ Revisited: World- Systems Analysis and the Transition to Capitalism
The Making of the Modern World- System: The Wallerstein Thesis
The Problem of Eurocentrism
The Problem of Historical Specificity

The Spatio-Temporal Limits of Political Marxism
The Brenner Thesis: Explanation and Critique
The Geopolitical in the Making of Capitalism
The Political Marxist Conception of Capitalism

The Problematic of Sociohistorical Difference: Postcolonial Studies Engaging Capital
The Eurocentrism of Historicism
The Violence of Abstraction
The Lacuna of Postcolonial Theory

Conclusion

Chapter 2 Rethinking the Origins of Capitalism: The Theory of Uneven and Combined Development

Introduction

The Theory of Uneven and Combined Development: Exposition and Critiques
Unevenness
Combination
Seeing Through a Prism Darkly? Uneven and Combined Development beyond the Eurocentric Gaze

Trotsky beyond Trotsky? Uneven and Combined Development before Capitalism
More Questions than Answers: Method, Abstraction, and Historicity in Marx’s Thought
Modes of Production Versus Uneven and Combined Development? A False Antithesis

Conclusion: Towards an ‘Internationalist Historiography’ of Capitalism

Chapter 3 The Long Thirteenth Century: Structural Crisis, Conjunctural Catastrophe

Introduction

Pax Mongolica as a Vector of Uneven and Combined Development
The Nomadic Mode of Production and Uneven and Combined Development
The World-Historical Significance of the Mongol Empire
Trade, Commerce, and Socio-Economic Development under the Pax Mongolica

Apocalypse Then: The Black Death and the Crisis of Feudalism
Class Struggle and the Changing Balance of Class Forces in Europe
Peasant Differentiation in the Age of the Black Death
Development of the Productive Forces

Conclusion

Chapter 4 The Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry over the Long 16th Sixteenth  Century

Introduction

Unevenness: A Clash of Social Reproduction
Ottoman–European Relations
The Tributary and Feudal Modes of Production: Unevenness Combined
Ottoman ‘Penalties of Progressiveness’ – European ‘Privileges of Backwardness’

Combination: Pax Ottomana and European Trade
The Ottoman ‘Whip of External Necessity’
The Breakdown of Christendom
The Ottoman Blockade and the Emergence of the Atlantic
The Ottoman Buffer and English Primitive Accumulation

Conclusion: The Ottoman Empire as a Vector of Uneven and Combined Development

Chapter 5 The Atlantic Sources of European Capitalism, Territorial Sovereignty and the Modern Self

Introduction

Imagining Europe in the Atlantic Mirror: Rethinking the Territorialised Sovereign, Self and Other
Tearing Down the Ideological Walls of Christendom: From Sacred to Secular Universalism in the Construction of the European Self and non-European Other
Legitimising Colonialism: The Historical Sociological Foundations of Eurocentrism
Culture Wars in the Americas
The Colonial Origins of the Modern Territorialised States Systems

1492 in the History of Uneven and Combined Development
The Smithian Moment: American Treasures and So-Called Primitive Accumulation
Sublating the Smithian Moment: From Smith to Marx via ‘the International’
Primitive Accumulation Proper: From ‘Simple’ to ‘Expanded’ Reproduction

The Uneven and Combined Development of Plantation Slavery
The Sociological Unevenness of the Atlantic
Sociological Combination in the Plantation System

New World Slavery and the Rise of Industrial Capitalism
Contributions to the Sphere of Circulation
Contributions to the Sphere of Production

Conclusion: Colonies, Merchants and the Transition to Capitalism

Chapter 6 The ‘Classical’ Bourgeois Revolutions in the History of Uneven and Combined Development

Introduction

The Concept of Bourgeois Revolution
Reconceptualising Bourgeois Revolutions: A Consequentialist Approach
Reconstructing Consequentialism through Uneven and Combined Development

The Origins of Capitalism and the Bourgeois Revolution in the Low Countries
The Rise of Dutch Capitalism: An International Perspective
The Making of the Dutch Revolt

The English Revolution in the History of Uneven and Combined Development
Rediscovering the British Revolution
Social Forces in the Making of the British Revolution

1789 in the History of Uneven and Combined Development
Peculiarities of the French Revolution?
Capitalism and the Absolutist State in France
The Origins of the Capitalist Revolution in France
Capitalist Consequences of the French Revolution

Conclusion

Chapter 7 Combined Encounters: Dutch Colonisation in South-East Asia and the Contradictions of ‘Free Labour’

Introduction

The Specificity and Limits of Dutch Capitalism
Dutch Institutional Innovations
The Limits of Dutch ‘Domestic’ Capitalism

Unevenness and Combination in the Pre-Colonial Indian Ocean Littoral
The Intersocietal System of the Indian Ocean
South Asia beyond the Eurocentric Gaze

The Dutch Encounter: A Policy of Combination
The Specificities and ‘Success’ of Dutch Strategies of Integration and Domination in
South-East Asia
The Moluccas
The Banda Islands
Indian Textiles

Conclusion

Chapter 8 Origins of the Great Divergence over the Longue Durée: Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’

Introduction

Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’: Advances and Impasses in the Revisionist Challenge
Points of Agreement: European ‘Backwardness’ and the Role of the Colonies
Late and Lucky: Contingences, the Eurasian Homogeneity Thesis, and the Great Divergence

Structure and Conjuncture in the ‘Rise of the West’
The Geopolitical Competition Model and Its Limits
Feudalism, Merchants, and the European States System in the Transition to Capitalism
Unevenness Combined: North-South Interactions in the ‘Rise of the West’

The Conjunctural Moment of ‘Overtaking’: Britain’s Colonisation of India
The Significance of India’s Colonisation to the ‘Rise of the West’
The Mughal Empire and the Tributary Mode of Production
The Imperial Revenue System and Agricultural Decline in the Mughal Empire
European Trade and Colonial Conquest: Towards 1757

Conclusion

Conclusion

Notes
Index

This article presents an overview of the long term trends in the trading patterns for salted herring in the area of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and their hinterlands in the period of c. 1600-1850. The market is defined as ‘the interaction between supply and demand to determine the market price and corresponding quantity bought and sold.’  In this period the north European herring market underwent several changes. This is analysed from four different points of view:
The first main section examines the main trading routes for herring in Northern Europe by use of records from the Sound toll registers as well as from accounts of herring imports in the German North Sea and Baltic cities. Then a number of price series for various parts of northern Europe give indications for the long term development of prices of herring. Following this an analysis of the consumption patterns of salted herring is carried out, and finally the influence of mercantilist policies is evaluated.

Speciaal Voorwoord bij deze verlate uitgave in 2015 van een ouder document

Volgens mijn laatste uitgave ‘Review of sources; The White Ning Of Europe’(2015) waren de Europese elite, de stichters van de Griekse beschaving, vanaf 3000 VChr bruin en zwart van teint, en van Noord Afrikaanse origine. Het is zeer nuttig hen als nakomelingen van NOORD  Afrikanen te zien, want dat schept duidelijkheid over het variatie in uiterlijk, en de adellijke cultuur. Wellicht behoort de geschiedenis van Noord Afrika, met betrekking tot de stichting van steden en de staatsvorming in Europa, in samenhang bestudeert te moeten worden. In dit onderzoek speculeer ik vaak over het zwarte uiterlijk van Charlotte van der Lith. Een nakomeling bezocht haar plantage en beschreef haar als een ‘mulattin.’ Zonder dat verder te verklaren. Ze kon echter geen mulattin zijn, maar ze kon slechts bruin van huid zijn. Een biografie van haar zoon Joan Raye maakt melding van het feit dat hij opdracht gaf zijn collectie van familieportretten te vernietigen. Er was kennelijk iets ernstigs aan de hand met het uiterlijk van de familie, beschouwd in de 19e eeuw. Hoewel dit toch hoopgevend is want hij kon alleen zijn eigen bezit laten vernietigen. Dus denk ik dat er ergens nog portretten van Charlotte van de Lith bestaan, in geheime collecties. Wie weet dat men ook niet aan het laten ‘restaureren’ toekwam, of dat weigerden, zodat we haar ooit in haar volle bruine of zwarte glorie zouden kunnen zien. Nu presenteer ik een gewit portret van Comtesse D’Andlau, een dochter van Helvetius de filosoof als een mogelijke representatie van Van der Lith’s uiterlijk.
Mijn onderzoek naar van der Lith begon al voor 2001, want ik gebruikte aspecten van haar persoon in mijn toneelstuk over Maria Susanna Du Plessis’ (1739-1795). Toen ik dit onderzoekje opschreef echter beschikte ik alleen over een beschrijving door Mauricius van de moeder van Frederick Stolkert en eigenaresse van hecht en Sterk, Elizabeth..; hij was Maria Susanna Du Plessis’ tweede echtgenoot; als zou zij een ‘mulattin’ zijn. Het was moeilijk te plaatsen, want dan zou gouverneur Nepveu hertrouwd zijn met de immens rijke dochter van een slavin. De vondst van een portret van Jacobus van der Werff, een neef van MSDP, toonde een zwart jongetje en dus kleur in de familie. Hij was ook de kleinzoon van de zus van Van der Lith.