War, Capital, and the Dutch State (1588-1795)

Pepijn Brandon, Ph.D. (2013), University of Amsterdam, is a prize-winning historian of the Dutch Republic. He has held positions at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the International Institute of Social History, and is currently based at the University of Pittsburgh.

"War, Capital, and the Dutch State (1588-1795) has the potential to become a highly influential book." - Dr. Gijs Rommelse, International Journal of Maritime History, 28(3):606-607."For the moment, ... Brandon's work probably provides the last word on these issues, and the decision to publish it in English will hopefully secure for it the wide circulation that it undoubtedly deserves." - Dr. Aaron Graham, The Economic History Review, 69, 4 (2016):1389-1390. "How could the Dutch Republic that was so unlike the ideal of a powerful, centralized state play a crucial role for so long in the war-torn state-system of early-modern Europe? For Pepijn Brandon the explanation resides in the fact that it was a ‘federal-brokerage state’. Dutch state-makers continued to devolve power downwards towards local and provincial institutions rather than to create national administrative bodies and to favour brokerage over bureaucracy. They mediated between merchants oriented toward the world market and more local interest groups and could thus draw on the impressive resources of the Dutch economy. It was only late in the eighteenth century that internal limits of this parcellized state structure became patent. To show its major strengths and its finally emerging weaknesses the author provides a very lucid in-depth analysis of three areas of interaction between the state and capitalists in the organization of warfare.This groundbreaking book provides a fascinating and knowledgeable case-study of the actual interplay of three of the main driving forces in the history of the early modern era: capitalism, state-formation and war and has major implications for many general claims that have been made with regard to their history and the history of the Dutch Republic."- Prof. dr. Peer Vries, University of Vienna"This research clearly makes an important contribution to our thinking about warfare and state formation." — Christiaan van Bochove, in: Continuity and Change, 32/2 (2017): 289-291“… the publisher should be commended for making this study available to a large English-speaking audience, which it certainly deserves. Brandon’s contribution is a type of economic history that has unfortunately fallen out of favor in recent decades, replaced by reams of cultural history, so one can only hope that this notable study will inspire similar social science research into the complex symbiosis of states and capital accumulation elsewhere. Every university’s history department should acquire a copy for its own library collection.” – Eric Mielants, in: Science & Society (2018)"Brandon’s study is not only well researched, it is highly convincing and will undoubtedly lead to a reconsideration of the forces at play in the development of the early modern state." - Donald J. Harreld, in: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. LXX:3 (2017)

• List of Charts and TablesTranslations of Frequently Used Dutch TermsNote on CurrencyIntroductionDutch War-Making and State-Making: Three Solutions to a RiddleTypologies of the Early Modern State FormThe Dutch Cycle of AccumulationThe Federal-Brokerage State and its ‘Historic Bloc’Content and Structure of the Book.Chapter 1 The Making of the Federal-Brokerage State 1.1 The Dutch Revolt and the Establishment of the State 1.2 Types of Brokerage 1: Merchant Warriors 1.3 Types of Brokerage 2: Merchants as Administrators 1.4 Types of Brokerage 3: Financial Intermediaries in Troop Payments 1.5 Political and Ideological Foundations of the Federal-Brokerage State Conclusions Chapter 2Merchant Companies, Naval Power, and Trade Protection 2.1 The Naval Revolution and the Challenge to Dutch Trade 2.2 A Unified State Company for Colonial Trade? 2.3 The VOC and the Navy from Symbiosis to Division of Labour 2.4 The WIC between Private Trade and State Protection 2.5 European Commercial Directorates as Protection Lobbies 2.6 Protection Costs and Merchant Interests Conclusions Chapter 3 Production, Supply, and Labour Relations at the Naval Shipyards 3.1 Capitalist Rationality, Accounting, and the Naval Revolution 3.2 Personal Networks and Market Practices 3.3 Different Products, Different Systems of Supply 3.4 Naval Shipyards as Centres of Production 3.5 Shipyards and their Workforce 3.6 Admiralty Boards and the Labour Market 3.7 Combination, Coordination, and Control 3.8 Of Time, Theft, and Chips 3.9 Neptune’s Trident and Athena’s Gifts Conclusions Chapter 4 Troop Payments, Military Soliciting, and the World of Finance 4.1 From Disorder to Regulation 4.2 A Golden Age of Military Soliciting 4.3 Two Careers in Military Finance 4.4 The Daily Affairs of a Financial Middleman 4.5 Networks of Credit and Influence 4.6 Military Soliciting in the Age of Financialisation Conclusions Chapter 5 The Structural Crisis of the Federal-Brokerage State 5.1 The Rise and Limits of Reform Agendas 5.2 Warring Companies and the Debate over Free Trade 5.3 Admiralty Boards at the Centre of the Storm 5.4 From Citizens’ Militias to the Batavian Legion 5.5 The Afterlife of the Federal-Brokerage State Conclusions Conclusion Annex 1Holland Members of the Amsterdam Admiralty Board Annex 2Zeeland Members of the Zeeland Admiralty BoardAnnex 3Income and Expenditure of the Amsterdam Admiralty: Steps from Figures in ‘Borderel’ to Reconstruction Sources and BibliographyIndex