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Book Review: Catia Antunes and Jos Gommans (eds): Exploring the Dutch Empire: Agents, Networks and Institutions, 1600–2000

in the Netherlands to its global position. Wielenga’s major theme will not surprise specialists, in that he emphasizes division within the fabric of a society that can appear blandly comfortable to outsiders. As he shows, these divisions can be seen from the sixteenth century until today. They relate traditionally to constitutional disputes, religious division, and the related politics, and, from the nineteenth century, new issues were confronted in part in light of the detailed alignments of these earlier politics. At the same time, it can be very difficult to adopt an evaluative position. Was political progress in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for example, to be associated with a more centralized state and/or with the domination of the House of Orange? Whether the three episodes of violent political crisis in the seventeenth century, those in 1618, 1650 and 1672, all of which were short-term, should be regarded as a sign of weakness or, rather, as one of the strengths of Dutch political life, is open to debate. In the European perspective, the United Provinces lacked the strong, centralized institutions and sense of national identity that were subsequently to be regarded as necessary, but were still a major power. The relationship between the federal, decentralized character of Dutch politics, the strength of mercantile and entrepreneurial elements and ethos, and the strong commercial economy which helped the republic sustain a large long-term public debt, was a dynamic one. Moreover, the existence of a federal structure, while giving domestic political rivalries the continuity of institutional form, also made it possible to run a pluralistic political system. Religious toleration also made it easier to retain control over areas conquered from Spain that had a Catholic majority. And so also for the major problems of judging twentieth-century Dutch history. Although incomplete, an impressive work on an interesting topic.