Ibero-Dutch Imperial Entanglements in the Seventeenth Century

“By foregrounding the adaptability of the Iberian and Dutch Empires, this volume convincingly challenges the existing scholarship on early modern empires, still largely oriented towards the seemingly inevitable dominance of the English/British empire. It demonstrates that the Iberian and Dutch empires endured into the second half of the seventeenth century by reinventing themselves through commercial and diplomatic cooperation after a period of confrontation and competition.” —Cátia Antunes, Professor, History of Global Economic Networks, University of Leiden, the Netherlands “Offering a series of case studies that bring together the histories of Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, this volume enriches the history of the long seventeenth century. With its focus on political, diplomatic, and colonial histories, it challenges the traditional narrative of British and French rise in the second half of the seventeenth century—and their putative displacement of the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch from the global stage—arguing that rumors of Iberian and Dutch decline have been greatly exaggerated.” —Benjamin Schmidt, Jon Bridgman Professor of History, University of Washington, USA This book explores the entanglements among Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic during the seventeenth century from a global perspective. It offers a compelling analysis of how Ibero-Dutch relations shifted from violence and conflict—during the Iberian Union (1580–1640) and the Dutch quest for independence (1579–1648)—into collaboration and coexistence in the century’s second half. The encounters between the Iberians and the Dutch in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean regions highlight their centrality in geopolitical shifts around the globe. Challenging the paradigm of decline, the contributions gathered here demonstrate that instead, each polity embraced strategic trade-offs and reshaped imperial pursuits that ultimately allowed them to thrive as empires during the entire seventeenth century. Silvia Z. Mitchell is Associate Professor of History at Purdue University, USA, and post-doctoral researcher at CINTER, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain. Erica Heinsen-Roach was Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida, USA, and is currently an independent scholar.