During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Dutch Republic performed a crucial function as the cultural and intellectual clearinghouse of Europe. It was partly through the existence of a well-established and highly competitive publishing industry and book trade that the Dutch were able to play such a prominent role in the international transmission of knowledge and ideas.
Yet our understanding of the Dutch involvement in the European book trade still is limited and important questions remain to be answered. How was Dutch publishing and bookselling for the international market...