The Dutch Republic, Centre of the European book trade in the 17th century

Abstract

In the seventeenth century the Dutch Republic witnessed its Golden Age. The reasons for this phenomenon are diverse, but it impacted all branches of Dutch society, including the production, distribution and consumption of printed media. The book trade benefitted from a lack of control, the result of the country’s remarkable political structure and absence of a state religion. Waves of religious and economic immigrants provided the necessary manpower, skills and creativity. Following the workings of a staple market economy, printers and publishers turned imported raw materials, including news and information, into finished products – books, newspapers, magazines – which they sold wherever there was a demand for them, at home as well as abroad. High rates of literacy and education encouraged a thriving book culture. The ascendency, however, was shortlived, as it also depended on the temporarily weak position of neighbouring countries. By the middle of the eighteenth century, with Britain, France and the German states on the rise, the ‘Dutch miracle’ was over, in the world of books as well as in any other.