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Zusatztext An excellent work of historical synthesis and interpretation, geared to the challenges of the present time. It is concise but also far-reaching; accessible but often penetrating. The authors call upon social theory and comparative history to describe the broad trends, turning points, and divergent paths of Dutch, European and Global history. Informationen zum Autor 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). Vivien Collingwood is a freelance Dutch-to-English translator and editor based in the Netherlands. She has an MA in History from Cambridge University, UK and a D.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Oxford, UK. She specialises in non-fiction translations in the fields of history, political science, development studies, political economy, sociology and education. 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. Jeroen Touwen is Associate Professor of Economic and Social History at Leiden University. Vorwort An exploration of the major worldwide social, political and economic changes through the prism of the Netherlands and its history over the last thousand years. Zusammenfassung 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 ot...
