Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World

Awards:   Winner of Hendricks Book Award (United States). Winner of Hendricks Book Award 2020 (United States)
Author:   D. L. Noorlander
Publisher:   Cornell University Press
ISBN:  

9780801453632


Pages:   300
Publication Date:   15 September 2019
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World


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Awards

  • Winner of Hendricks Book Award (United States).
  • Winner of Hendricks Book Award 2020 (United States)

Overview

Heaven's Wrath explores the religious thought and religious rites of the early Dutch Atlantic world. D. L. Noorlander argues that the Reformed Church and the West India Company forged and maintained a close union, with considerable consequences across the seventeenth century. Dutch merchants, officers, sailors, and soldiers found in their faith an ideology and justification for mercantile and martial activities. The West India Company supported the Reformed Church financially in Europe and helped spread Calvinism to other continents, while Calvinist employees and colonists benefitted from the familiar aspects of religious instruction and public worship. Yet, Noorlander argues, the church-company union also encouraged destructive military operations against Catholic enemies abroad and divisive campaigns against sinners and religious nonconformers in colonial courts. Religious fervor, violence, and intolerance imposed financial and demographic costs that the small Dutch Republic and its people-strapped colonies could not afford. At the same time, the Reformed Church in the Netherlands undermined its own religious mission by trying to control colonial hires, publications, and organization from afar. Noorlander's argument in Heaven's Wrath questions the core assumptions about why the Dutch failed to establish a durable empire in America. He downplays the usual commercial explanations and places the focus instead on the tremendous expenses incurred in the Calvinist-backed war and the Reformed Church's meticulous, worried management of colonial affairs. By pinpointing the issues that hampered the size and import of the Dutch Atlantic world, Noorlander is poised to revise core notions about the organization and aims of the Dutch empire, the culture of the West India Company, and the very shape of Dutch society.

Full Product Details

Author:   D. L. Noorlander
Publisher:   Cornell University Press
Imprint:   Cornell University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780801453632


ISBN 10:   0801453631
Pages:   300
Publication Date:   15 September 2019
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

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Reviews

Heaven's Wrath is a well-written and enjoyable monograph based on thorough research in an enormous collection of primary sources by an author who demonstrates joy in writing. Noorlander has written a book that is a boon for everyone interested in any religious element of the Dutch Atlantic. It will prove to be a welcome reference (in both the text itself and its footnotes) for everyone working on this general topic. * NEW WEST INDIAN GUIDE * For me, as a Dutch scholar of New Netherland, Heaven's Wrath is a nail in the coffin of the antiquated idea that New Amsterdam was founded solely 'to make a buck,'. Heaven's Wrath is a deeply impressive, even-handed, and nuanced treatment of the relationship between faith, worship, and the emerging capitalist economy of the Dutch Republic, as epitomized in the West India Company. It is an important contribution to the scholarship of the Atlantic World. * The New England Quarterly * Heaven's Wrath adds an important perspective to the growing scholarship that shows that the company's objectives were not exclusively or even largely commercial. * William & Mary Quarterly * In Heaven's Wrath, the American historian Danny Noorlander successfully disproves some of the 'most persistent claims' made in Anglo-American scholarship about the role of religion in early modern Dutch expansion. * Low Countries Historical Review * Writing with clarity, sardonic humor, and a vibrant selection of quotes from diligently mined materials, D. L. Noorlander gives a fresh account of the often-separate institutional histories of the seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed Church and the Dutch West India Company (WIC). [H]e provides plentiful evidence that spiritual zeal drove Dutch colonization in the Atlantic, and that it was religious rigor among the WIC's administrators and their colonial directors and ministers, not laxity, that prevented the widespread conversion of conquered or neighboring populations. * Early American Literature *


D. L. Noorlander has written an effective, strongly argued examination of the Dutch Republic and the colonial enterprise of the West India Company. -- Hans Krabbendam, Radboud University, author of<I> Freedom on the Horizon</I> Heaven's Wrath shows D. L. Noorlander's mastery of the theme connecting the Dutch West India Company and the Reformed Church. This is work of the highest quality. -- Willem Frijhoff, Vrije Universiteit Amsteredam, author of <I>Fulfilling God's Mission</I> This is an impressive, ambitious study that will change the conversation about religion, trade, and imperial expansion in the case of the Dutch. Heaven's Wrath exceeds all other work on the topic. -- Evan Haefeli, Texas A&M University, author of <I>New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty</I>


Author Information

D. L. Noorlander is Assistant Professor of History at the State University of New York at Oneonta. Follow him on X @DLNoorlander.

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