The Rise and Fall of the Dutch Maritime Empire: War, Trade, and Colonialism in the 17th-Century Atlantic World

Though the Netherlands, known as the "Carriers of the Seas," was a small country, it made the 17th century its own through the creation of a series of modern financial and commercial systems. Due to natural limitations such as its small territory, the Netherlands gradually lost its power to shape the world by the end of the 17th century. Yet the commercial rules the Dutch pioneered continue to influence the world today.

This is an accessible work of Dutch history, introducing the expansion of the Netherlands' overseas colonial reach during its 17th-century Golden Age. It traces the country's rapid rise in Africa and the Americas from the 1620s to the mid-1640s, followed by its gradual decline through the Eighty Years' War, the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and its war with Portugal. Through accounts of the lives of Dutch sailors and soldiers, Dutch merchants' interactions and trade with other countries, and the settlement and administration of Dutch colonies, the book reveals the unprecedented mark the Netherlands left on the vast Atlantic world. Dutch colonial rule brought discrimination, enslavement, and bloodshed, while also introducing Dutch institutions, legal practices, and cultural traditions. From political, economic, military, cultural, and social perspectives, this book explores how the "Carriers of the Seas" built and ultimately lost an Atlantic empire.