How did two low-lying and relatively uninviting provinces on the North Sea join to become the principal seafaring nation of the world within a single generation? Why was this spectacular rise, accompanied by an equally impressive flourishing of the arts and sciences in the Dutch "Golden Age" of the seventeenth century, succeeded by a loss of dynamism and impetus in the "Periwig Period" of the eighteenth century? Here is a vivid picture of the rise and fall of a remarkable society. Boxer investigates such themes as the attitudes of the ruling class and the working class to each other and to Dutch expansion overseas; who emigrated to the East and West Indies, and why and how; the commercial monopolies of the chartered India Companies; the daily life of Dutch merchants and mariners in the tropics; South Africa as a colony sui generis; and the true nature of the decline into the stagnant "Periwig Period."--Adapted from dust jacket.