Abstract
In this thoughtful and impressive book, Christian Koot, Assistant Professor of History at Towson University, provides a new account of the British Atlantic. In it, he argues against the standard presentation of competing empires, and instead focuses on the degree to which the Dutch played a key role within the new British empire. In part, this role arose from their conquest and incorporation of Dutch colonies, notably New Amsterdam, which became New York, but in part the role was rather one in which free-market opportunities and pressures took precedence over protectionist notions. Both the Dutch and the British had long been adept at this process, notably in penetrating the Portuguese and Spanish empires, and in one sense this was a new stage in the definition of Atlantic commercial opportunities. Related to this, capital flows were of great significance. The Dutch provided capital and sought a return on a new frontier for the European world, rather as the British did with America in the nineteenth century. Koot’s study also relates to the more general process by which the Dutch and British worlds became closely integrated in the late seventeenth century, notably with and thanks to the Glorious Revolution and the accession of William III. Last, Koot’s scholarship serves as a reminder of the extent to which Dutch sources and perspectives provide valuable insights for the wider world. As such, it offers a call for the multi-archival perspective. Koot concludes that the profound Dutch influence on the development of the British Atlantic appeared in the commercial culture of the colonists − one that clashed with the attempt by officials to focus on metropolitan interests. He shows that the situation changed by the 1710s as metropolitan interests now converged with a greater colonial commitment to the opportunities within the expanding empire.