This essay will discuss Dutch excellence in trade, art and literature individually to discern the factors which explain the high standards of distinction these fields achieved during the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic.
Although the smallest of the European powers in terms of territory, population, and natural resources, for 150 years the Dutch Republic dominated European trade with approximately half of the world’s total stock of seagoing ships at the zenith of its power.# How did such an insignificant state rise so rapidly, becoming according to contemporary observer Sir William Temple: “the envy of some, the fear of others and the wonder of all their neighbours”?# Shifting commercial patterns since the 16th century had seen the rise of a truly global economy. As the quality of ships improved, skippers travelled further distances with cargo, making arrival times and availability of goods unpredictable. A centrally located market where goods could be bought and sold at constant prices was needed.# Geographical factors made the Dutch Republic ideal for this role, situated at the intersection of Northern waterways connecting the Atlantic, Baltic and the Rhine. This position had grown in significance since the Mediterranean’s function as pivot of international trade had diminished.# Within the country, the Republic’s extensive waterways, river fleets and timber depots were well suited to a boom.# The Republic had already established a leadership in bulk transportation, a firm foundation which could be built upon. Since the 1590’s, the moedernegotie or mother trade moved huge quantities of goods such as lumber, fish and grain in large volume in cheap, simple ships.# However, real wealth lay in the “rich trades” of spices, silver and other luxury goods imported from the East Indies, Africa and the Americas. This trade was previously dominated by the Hanseatic states and England, but the Dutch Republic’s ease of access to the Iberian market and colonial goods enabled it to overtake the England Muscovy trade by 1600.# In 1602, the Dutch East Indies Company or VOC was founded, followed by the Dutch West Indies Company nineteen years later. Throughout the 1630’s, training posts were established in Sri Lanka and New Guinea.
Several important external factors allowed the establishment of this formidable trade empire at the dawn of the seventeenth century. The first of these was the inflow of immigrants from the Southern Netherlands and other European states in the late 16th and seventeenth centuries. Within the Dutch Republic, between 100,000 and 15,0000 refugees fled from the Spanish forces, settling mainly in Holland or Zeeland’s towns.
Firstly, the Caribbean smuggling was viewed as necessary and positive in the late eighteenth century. According to William Taggart, a British sailor traveling to testify at his smuggling trial in April 1760, the illegal transportation of goods from the Spanish port of Monte Christi led to general prosperity in the area, as there were only 100 relatively poor families and that the governor had full knowledge of this and demanded a tax of one silver Spanish coin. Taggart mi...
In the mid 18th century many different powers in Europe were trying to spread their influence and gain global power. However, this was not without difficulty. There were many regional issues that these powers needed to overcome such as economic complications, struggles with native and conquered peoples, and competing with other European powers.
The year 1942 marked a division in the contemporary world history. There were a number of developments that would bring enormous effects for the Old and the New World Wars. The discovery of these developments changed the diets of both the western and eastern regions, assisted in initiating the Atlantic slave trade, and spread illnesses that had a destructive effect on populations in India, and resulted in the creation of European colonies across the Western region (Cohen and Rosenzwei 124). This paper is focused on establishing the main events that made England to gain control over the Atlantic and establishing settlements in North America. The paper also explores the major events that led to the demise of Spanish power in the Atlantic. This will be done through looking at a number of factors including commerce, the rise of competing nations that presented an encouragement for the exploration and colonization of the new lands by the Europeans, rapid population growth, and new learning. In addition, it explores and explains reasons as to why Spain and Portugal were the first to be engaged in the exploration of the overseas, as well as, why France and England were slow in challenging the supremacy of Spain in the Americas. The primary sources to be used include Jamestown: 1607, The First Months, Jamestown: 1609-10, Starving Time by, George Percy, Cotton Mather’s The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, and Journey to Pennsylvania in the year 1750 by Gottlieb Mittelberger.
From 1650 until 100 years later, “relative isolation from the international economy fostered the growth of an independent, racially mixed peasantry whose contact with the outside world was limited to occasional contraband trade with foreigners.”(Scarano, 4) Despite evidence that it would be unsuccessful, the Spanish government tried to create a plantation labor force from the peasantry. This would
At the start of 1474, Spain was a non-existent entity that was composed of a series of minor kingdoms within the Iberian Peninsula. However Spain was subject to a process of change that led to the unification of the Iberian Peninsula under one monarchy, which controlled the new world and large areas of Northern Europe. This process of change was stimulated by the revenue of the new world and to varying degrees by domestic and international politics. However the New world was not always the primary factor during this period that catalysed the increase and maintenance of power. Over this time period the revenue from the new world increased, and thus directly Spain’s dependence upon it did as well. Isabella and Ferdinand had no reliance on the new world, as it occurred in the later third of their reign, and as such was viewed more as an economic failure. Kilsby rightly argues that with hindsight, the discovery of the Americas was the “the greatest event since the creation of the world.” Kamen shows us that there was a shift in the new world’s importance, as the “Indian globe” controlled by Spain caused their power and Kamen justily argues that the colonies were the sheet anchor of Phillips Power. The necessity of the new world is entirely due to the funds that it provided that stimulated other factors that contributed to Spain’s growing power over the time period.
The Gilded Age gets its name from a book by Mark Twain called The Gilded Age: a Tale of Today. It was written in 1873, and unfortunately was not that successful. While the Gilded Age conjures up visions of ostentatious displays of wealth and decorative parties, the over all topic was politics. The book gives an extremely negative assessment of the state of American democracy at that time. Which does not come as a huge surprise coming from Twain, who famously said "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” So when faced with sweeping changes in the American economy after the Civil War, the American political system both nationally and locally dealt with these problems in the best way possible, by inevitably and incredibly becoming corrupt.
Throughout the 1800’s many restrictive religious laws and economic conditions wore away and started to fuel the largest human migration in history of the world.
One of the most noteworthy northern European writers of the Renaissance was the Flemish painter, Jan van Eyck. Although there are few records about his early life and rise to prominence, the Van Eyck family was well regarded within the Burgundian Netherlands which allowed historians to surmise that he was born in the 1380s. After years of travelling through various northern courts and gaining esteem, Jan van Eyck painted perhaps his most famous work, The Arnolfini Double Portrait. This work has been the subject of a great deal of critical analysis as a piece of Renaissance art. Some historians have found that the work is demonstrative of artistic and social ideals that were both ahead of its time and touted the line of controversy. However, taking into account the painting’s patronage, symbolism, artistic style, and function, it becomes clear that The Arnolfini Double Portrait is an exemplar of the Renaissance era artistic conventions and is not as difficult to parse as some critics would believe. In order to discuss the painting in its entirety, it is necessary to explore the context of the painting’s creation.
The Dutch Republic made a steady decline following the 1650s. Though their budding commercial power in Amsterdam was great for both them and Europe, other countries saw that power as a potential threat. Seeking to take some of that commerce for their own use, nations like England and France allied to wage devastating war on the Dutch Republic. They damaged their morale and their wallets. Trade declined as the battles wore out the Dutch merchant ships and ravaged trade roots. With repeated military defeats, trade economy with damaged roots and piling debt, it was impossible for the Dutch to remain successful.
The Gilded Age is marked as the thirty-five years between the end of the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century. During this period of time, the economy grew at an astonishing rate, producing enormous amounts of wealth. This was also a time where the majority of the population was struggling to get by, and was classified as poor workers, while the industrial and financial aristocracy lives in beautiful homes and lived their lives with opulent amusement. Life was very different between different groups such as the rich and the poor, and even the men and the women. I definitely would not fit into the urban society of the Gilded Age because everything had to do with the men being in power, racism, and men’s constant control over politics, which would make being a women in this period of time very difficult.
Mark Twain collaborated with Charles Dudley Warner on The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Published in 1973, as Twain’s earliest work of extended fiction, The Gilded Age gives a name to the period of opulence and corruption at the end of the 19th century. Portraying the superficial luxury of Washington and high society, the authors describe “The general laxity of the time, and the absence of a sense of duty toward any part of the community but the individual himself” (Twain 203). Twain’s The Gilded Age, like Wharton’s The Age of Innocence focuses on high society. Yet, the imperfections in the gilding betray the dramatic change of the period. Forces of corporatization, unionization, immigration, urbanization, populism, post-reconstruction racism and machine politics were among the drastic changes in American lifestyle churning beneath the brittle “gilded” surface.
The process for the creation of these financial centers was the same as first the merchants peddling raw materials would move to a city which was more contusive to their trade, then the finishing craftsmen would follow to maintain access to the material for their craft, and lastly the financiers would follow the craftsmen to lend to them and support a budding local economy. This sequence progressed and came to a head in 1602 with the established of the VOC and so the stock market in order to finance trade ventures in the Indies, and in doing so, establish Amsterdam as a global trade and financial power in Europe. Yet, this same economic prowess also brought about financial disaster in the form of Tulip Mania in the 1630s as speculators who had once bet on the VOC had transitioned to tulips, causing destabilization within the economy. It was this process of first establishing commerce, investing in local trade, and foundation of banks and other financial avenues that led to Amsterdam and the Low Countries in general to becoming a dominant power in both trade and
Curiosity, coupled with the desire for economic accomplishments, attracted settlers searching for wealth in the New World. With the discovery of gold and silver in Spain, for instance, young, white males immigrated to the New World eager for prosperity around 1600-1650. Ironically, the same gold and silver which attracted immigrants for wealth, also led to inflation in Spain which ultimately weakened the Spanish nation. Noticing the deteriorating hold Spain had upon on the New World, England emerged from a once passive position of “privateers,” to actual colonization. The search for economic superiority continued, yet with at first, failed attempts – Roanoke Island, for instance. However, with the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, and the succes...
One facet of this unique system involved the numerous economic differences between England and the colonies. The English government subscribed to the economic theory of mercantilism, which demanded that the individual subordinate his economic activity to the interests of the state (Text, 49). In order to promote mercantilism in all her colonies, Great Britain passed the Navigation Acts in 1651, which controlled the output of British holdings by subsidizing. Under the Navigation Acts, each holding was assigned a product, and the Crown dictated the quantity to be produced. The West Indies, for example, were assigned sugar production and any other colony exporting sugar would face stiff penalties (Text, 50). This was done in order to ensure the economic prosperity of King Charles II, but it also served to restrict economic freedom. The geographical layout of the American colonies made mercantilism impractical there. The cit...
“Philosophers, writers, and artists expressed disillusionment with the rational-humanist tradition of the Enlightenment. They no longer shared the Enlightenment's confidence in either reason's capabilities or human goodness.” (Perry, pg. 457) It is interesting to follow art through history and see how the general mood of society changed with various aspects of history, and how events have a strong connection to the art of the corresponding time.