Most scholars agree that during the sixteenth century, the centre of European international trade shifted from Antwerp to Amsterdam, presaging the economic rise of the Dutch Republic in the following century. Traditionally, this shift has been accepted as the natural consequence of a dynamic and progressive city, such as Amsterdam, taking advantage of expanding commercial opportunities at the expense of a more conservative rival hampered by outmoded medieval practices. Yet, whilst this theory is widely accepted, is it accurate? In this groundbreaking study, Cle Lesger argues that the shift of...