Description: ENG
In the seventeenth century, the Dutch built an Atlantic empire that stretched from the Caribbean to the African Gold Coast and from present-day New York to Brazil. This empire was forged on the battlefields and the high seas, as Dutch armies and fleets extended the decades-old independence war against Spain across the ocean. Dutch transatlantic fleets, armies, and colonies included numerous foreigners, largely drawn from countries in northwestern Europe. Nor would the Dutch have been able to achieve military victories without the native alliances they carefully cultivated. Indeed, the Dutch Atlantic was quintessentially inter-imperial, multinational, and multiracial. At the same time, it was an empire designed to benefit the Dutch Republic.
RUS
В XVII веке голландцы построили атлантическую империю, которая простиралась от Карибского моря до африканского Золотого Берега и от нынешнего Нью-Йорка до Бразилии. Империя формировалась на полях сражений и в открытом море, по мере того как голландские армия и флот вели затянувшуюся на десятилетия войну за независимость по всему океану. Голландские трансатлантический флот, армии и колонии включали множество иностранцев, в основном выходцев из стран северо-западной Европы. По сути, голландская Атлантика была межимперской, мультинациональной и мультирасовой.
Brief description: Wim Klooster is Professor and Robert H. and Virginia N. Scotland Endowed Chair in History and International Relations at Clark University, where he has taught since 2003. He has published widely on the Dutch Atlantic, smuggling, Jewish history, and the age of revolutions.