The Dutch seventeenth century, a 'Golden Age' ridden by intense ideological conflict, pioneered global trade, participatory politics and religious toleration. Its history is epitomized by the life and works of the brothers Johan (1622-1660) and Pieter de la Court (1618-1685), two successful textile entrepreneurs and radical republican theorists during the apex of Dutch primacy in world trade. This book explores the many facets of the brothers' political thought, focusing on their ground-breaking argument that commerce forms the mainstay of republican politics. With a contextual analysis that...

This volume explores the relevance of decline within the republican tradition. While scholarship on republicanism thrives, the idea of decline, which has been prominent in republican theory since antiquity, has received relatively little attention. The essays in this volume take a broad cultural perspective and study a wide variety of authors and (con)texts to situate decline among the key concepts in the history of republicanism. Most contributions focus on the Dutch Republic during the Age of Enlightenment and Revolutions, the area of expertise of Wyger Velema, to whom this volume is...