The First Modern Economy
Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815

"This book presents an intellectually ambitious argument with admirable clarity, the many separate pieces well worked out individually, and well integrated into the larger picture. There are now a number of books on the early modern Dutch economy,...but none to compare with this one in its broad sweep and the internal coherence of its basic argument. It must be the starting point for all subsequent discussion." James D. Tracy, Sixteenth Century Journal

"This excellent book on the Dutch economy in the period, published first in Dutch (in 1995) and now available in English in a somewhat revised version, can be considered to be high point in this re-evaluation of the period before 1800. ...the book will certainly become a classic, one which will dominate the historiography of Dutch economic history for a long time to come." Jan Luiten van Zanden, The International History Review

"This book represents an integration of many schools of thought, of academic disciplines, and of a vast body of material into a coherent whole." N.J.G. Pounds, American Historical Review

"...this monumental work shows how useful economic history, when properly integrated with social and political history, can be comprehending how the world functioned in the past." Richard W. Unger, Journal of Modern History