The Dutch moment: war, trade, and settlement in the seventeenth-century Atlantic world

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.