Many economic historians regard The Netherlands as…
1540 CE to 1683 CE
In early modern Europe it has the wealthiest trading city (Amsterdam) and the first full-time stock exchange.
The inventiveness of the traders leads to insurance and retirement funds as well as phenomena such as the boom-bust cycle, the world's first asset-inflation bubble, the tulip mania of 1636–1637, and the world's first bear raider, Isaac le Maire, who forces prices down by dumping stock and then buying it back at a discount.
In 1672—known in Dutch history as the Rampjaar (Disaster Year)—the Dutch Republic is at war with France, England and three German Bishoprics simultaneously.
At sea it can successfully prevent the English and French navy entering the western shores.
On land, however, it is almost taken over internally by the advancing French and German armies coming from the east.
It can, however, turn the tide by inundating parts of Holland, but will never recover to its former glory again and will go into a state of general decline in the eighteenth century, with economic competition from England and long-standing rivalries between the two main factions in Dutch society, the republican Staatsgezinden and the supporters of the stadtholder, the Prinsgezinden, as the main political factions.
People
Groups
Regions
West Europe
View →Subregions
