Introduction: Dutch Industry and English Identity

Early modern England and the United Provinces experienced an emulative rivalry between the Spanish Armada and the Glorious Revolution. The English intervened against Catholic tyrants in the Dutch Revolt and expected the Dutch to be grateful. A century later, the Dutch intervened in the Glorious Revolution against another Catholic tyrant. Tracing the emergence of their national identities in the seventeenth century, this book begins by looking at English interest in Dutch industry, an admirable trait with greater importance than popular stereotypes. Over the course of this century, writers recognized that their nation could learn a great deal from the other liberal, Protestant, commercial nations across the Narrow Seas from them, even with their feelings of rivalry with a nation so much like themselves.