A major feat of research and synthesis, this book presents the first comprehensive history of the Dutch economy in the nineteenth century--an important but poorly understood piece of European economic history. Based on a detailed reconstruction of extensive economic data, the authors account for...

Inhalt: Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: The Market as a party? -- 2. Eight hundred years of economic growth, 1000-1800 -- 3. Between feudalism and freedom, 1000-1350 -- 4. Capitalism and civil society in late Medieval Holland, 1350-1566 -- 5. A capitalist revolution? The Dutch...

"For over a century now, historians have debated the causes of the lagged industrialization of the Dutch economy during the nineteenth century. To this debate, Trials of Convergence brings the analytical perspective of prices, factor costs and the functioning of markets. Its critical insight is...

Trials of Convergence analyses the nineteenth century industrialization of the Netherlands from the perspective of prices and factor costs. It shows that its retarded transition was due to the confluent effect of open economy forces, endowments and the erratic adjustment of economic and fiscal...