Dutch Shipbuilding Before 1800

First published in 1997, this collection of articles, two of which hitherto only appeared in Dutch, examines the technical changes in shipbuilding, as well as new practices in shipping and fishing, from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. It seeks to show how these changes transformed the European economy and affected the relationship between the economy and governments, and to portray the process, although most dramatic in the Dutch Republic, as part of a general European phenomenon. The studies also investigate the causes of these developments, and suggest how improvements in shipping may have affected patterns of trade and behaviour of public authorities.

In 1671, Dutch diplomat and scientist Nicolaes Witsen published a book that served, among other things, as an encyclopedia for the “shell-first” method of ship construction. In the centuries since, Witsen’s rather convoluted text has also become a valuable source for insights into historical shipbuilding methods and philosophies during the “Golden Age” of Dutch maritime trade. However, as André Wegener Sleeswyk’s foreword notes, Witsen’s work is difficult to access not only for its seventeenth-century Dutch language but also for the vagaries of its author’s presentation. Fortunately for scholars and students of nautical archaeology and shipbuilding, this important but chaotic work has now been reorganized and elucidated by A. J. Hoving and translated into English by Alan Lemmers. In Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age, Hoving, master model builder for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, sorts out the steps in Witsen’s method for building a seventeenth-century pinas by following them and building a model of the vessel. Experimenting with techniques and materials, conducting research in other publications of the time, and rewriting as needed to clarify and correct some vital omissions in the sequence, Hoving makes Witsen’s work easier to use and understand. Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age is an indispensable guide to Witsen’s work and the world of his topic: the almost forgotten basics of a craftsmanship that has been credited with the flourishing of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. To view a sample of Ab Hoving’s ship model drawings, please visit: http://nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/AbHoving.htm

First published in 1997, this collection of articles, two of which hitherto only appeared in Dutch, examines the technical changes in shipbuilding, as well as new practices in shipping and fishing, from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. It seeks to show how these changes transformed the European economy and affected the relationship between the economy and governments, and to portray the process, although most dramatic in the Dutch Republic, as part of a general European phenomenon. The studies also investigate the causes of these developments, and suggest how improvements in shipping may have affected patterns of trade and behaviour of public authorities.

Eight months into its maiden voyage to the Indies, the Dutch East India Company’s Batavia sank on June 4, 1629 on Morning Reef in the Houtman Abrolhos off the western coast of Australia. Wendy van Duivenvoorde’s five-year study was aimed at reconstructing the hull of Batavia, the only excavated remains of an early seventeenth-century Indiaman to have been raised and conserved in a way that permits detailed examination, using data retrieved from the archaeological remains, interpreted in the light of company archives, ship journals, and Dutch texts on shipbuilding of this period. Over two hundred tables, charts, drawings, and photographs are included.

England's response to the Revolt of the Netherlands (1568–1648) has been studied hitherto mainly in terms of government policy, yet the Dutch struggle with Habsburg Spain affected a much wider community than just the English political elite. It attracted attention across Britain and drew not just statesmen and diplomats but also soldiers, merchants, religious refugees, journalists, travellers and students into the conflict. Hugh Dunthorne draws on pamphlet literature to reveal how British contemporaries viewed the progress of their near neighbours' rebellion, and assesses the lasting impact which the Revolt and the rise of the Dutch Republic had on Britain's domestic history. The book explores affinities between the Dutch Revolt and the British civil wars of the seventeenth century - the first major challenges to royal authority in modern times - showing how much Britain's changing commercial, religious and political culture owed to the country's involvement with events across the North Sea.