bcThe Dutch Republic and Britain: The Making of Modern Society and a European World-Economy

FAIN: FV-50100-06

University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2356)
Gerard M. Koot (Project Director: March 2006 to September 2008)

A five-week summer seminar, to be held in Great Britain and the Netherlands, for fifteen school teachers to study the rise of both the Dutch economic empire in the seventeenth century and the British economic empire in the eighteenth century.

The purpose of this five week (July 1-August 3,2007) NEH Seminar for School Teachers at the Historical Institute in London and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Wassenaar is to investigate how a region of northwest Europe, centered around the North Sea, acquired the characteristics that historians have labeled modern. We will study how the national economy of the Dutch Republic rose to dominance in the new European world-economy of the seventeenth century, how Britain acquired this supremacy in the eighteenth century, and how it transformed itself to become the first industrial nation. Using a comparative method, we will study contemporary accounts, five seminal historical works and visit some of the key places that experienced this world-historical transformation. The seminar will allow teachers to explore the historiography of an important topic in European economic and social history and to appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of humanistic studies.