Open-access edition of "Heaven's Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World" by D. L. Noorlander

FAIN: DR-292401-23

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)
Mahinder Singh Kingra (Project Director: November 2022 to April 2025)

Heaven's Wrath explores the religious thought and religious rites of the early Dutch Atlantic world. D. L. Noorlander argues that the Reformed Church and the West India Company forged and maintained a close union, with considerable consequences across the seventeenth century. Dutch merchants, officers, sailors, and soldiers found in their faith an ideology and justification for mercantile and martial activities. The West India Company supported the Reformed Church financially in Europe and helped spread Calvinism to other continents, while Calvinist employees and colonists benefitted from the familiar aspects of religious instruction and public worship. Yet the church-company union also encouraged destructive military operations against Catholic enemies abroad and divisive campaigns against sinners and religious nonconformers in colonial courts.

Media Coverage

Review (Review)
Author(s): Carolyn Arena
Publication: Early American Literature
Date: 1/28/2025
Abstract: Writing with clarity, sardonic humor, and a vibrant selection of quotes from diligently mined materials, D. L. Noorlander gives a fresh account of the often-separate institutional histories of the seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed Church and the Dutch West Indies Company.
URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27081931

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World
Year: 2019
ISBN: 9781501740336
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Author: D. L. Noorlander
Abstract: Heaven's Wrath explores the religious thought and religious rites of the early Dutch Atlantic world. D. L. Noorlander argues that the Reformed Church and the West India Company forged and maintained a close union, with considerable consequences across the seventeenth century. Noorlander questions the core assumptions about why the Dutch failed to establish a durable empire in America. He downplays the usual commercial explanations and places the focus instead on the tremendous expenses incurred in the Calvinist-backed war and the Reformed Church's meticulous, worried management of colonial affairs. By pinpointing the issues that hampered the size and import of the Dutch Atlantic world, Noorlander revises core notions about the organization and aims of the Dutch empire, the culture of the West India Company, and the very shape of Dutch society.
Primary URL: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501740336/heavens-wrath/
Primary URL Description: This URL links to the book's webpage on the Cornell University Press website, which allows users to download the Open Access ebooks as either ePub or PDF files for free.
Secondary URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/255/oa_monograph/book/68353
Secondary URL Description: This URL links to the book's record on the Project MUSE site, indicating its status as an Open Access title. NB: Although updated files with changes to the copyright page indicating that Open Access publication has been supported by the NEH have been disseminated to our ebook partners like Project MUSE and JSTOR, these platforms may not have replaced the existing file with the revised file.
URL 3: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctvfc5258
URL 3 Description: This URL links to the book's record on the JSTOR site, indicating its status as an Open Access title. NB: Although updated files with changes to the copyright page indicating that Open Access publication has been supported by the NEH have been disseminated to our ebook partners like Project MUSE and JSTOR, these platforms may not have replaced the existing file with the revised file.
Type: Single author monograph

Prizes

Hendricks Book Award
Date: 9/15/2021
Organization: New Netherland Institute

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