Bookshop of the world : Making and trading books in the Dutch Golden Age Andrew Pettegree and Arthur de Weduwen. 2019 407 pg

  27/1/23

17C the Dutch published more books per capita than any other book producing nation. 3 million art pictures in their homes and 300 million books. Relative to population the printed 10 times the number of books to all the countries. They also imported vast numbers of books from France, Germany and Italy many to reexport. The home market was the most important.

1566 Dutch revolt of the dissident Calvinist Church and 1585 the leading publishing from the south Antwerp  moved north and Holland which began to grow because of the massive economic migration from the south, and the prosperity of Flanders was transferred to Amsterdam beginning the Dutch miracle with a population of 2 million. When Galileo was forbidden to publish in Italy he published in Amsterdam.

1663 "What is a man who has no understanding of good books" This was Europe's most urban , literate and educated society. Latin education produced the elite  destined to be lawyers, doctors and ministers. Books for these subjects were printed in Latin

 You had Dutch schools free to the poorest of society, with their books printed  in the vernacular.

"libri prohibiti" of Spinoza , Hobbes and Pieter de la Court. But  publishes of this had nothing to fear. Some of the books survived well in libraries as they were not read much. Legal tomes were published in Lyon,Frankfurt or Paris but the Dutch offered books that made a profit.

1guilden =20stuiven 1 stuiven = 8 duiten or 16 penningen. Most new books were sold as loose sheets and you had to go to a binder in a different shop

1637 the New States Bible came out. Many scholars received books in return for help like proofreading. Big books made reputations but small books made money. Dutch Calvinism spawned it own authoritative interpreters of theology.

1609  The Twelve Year Truce this left the Dutch state a confederal union of 7 provinces. This was a contentious issue as it had been signed against the wishes of a large segment of the population. Privateers were attacking the Spanish, Protestant Flemish and Walloons  had had 3 years to  convert back  to Catholicism or move north, once the borders became fixed by peace it meant that they could never return to their homes of possessions in the south. Spain realized they could not conquer the Dutch by arms and so tried by the truce bribes , betrayal and deceit.

Pamphleteering and public debate were at the heart of Dutch political culture, it subverted the authority of the state and became illegal but nobody took regard of this. Many beneficial writing were  published anonymously by patriots.

The DRC Dutch Reformed Church was the only church formally supported by the state, and the University of Leiden was the leader of this. Remonstrative literature and debate was remarkable as  was all in the Dutch language.

1619 Johan van Oldenbarnesvelt was executed, printed about this in the press but announced that more on the subject would follow next week. The first time the press made a serial of a story. The concept of the Newspaper took  over from the pamphleteer, but it had a fixed time that it had to come out for its subscribers.

1626 Becks Diary was written during an exceptional turbulent period of the Dutch Republic and social life at his school and mentions  the capture of San Savadore de Bahia in Brazil by the Dutch.

1639 Dutch victory of the Battle of the Downs. The Spanish navy was defeated and Dutch and British came of age.

Atlases were in great demand as the Dutch trade went around the world. Booksellers had informal reading rooms.

Newspapers on a single press front an back could print a maximum of 1000 copies in a day. So 1000 subscription was the optimum unless he doubled it and got 2 presses. The Newspapers were often subsidized in German by the local power on in England by Whig or Tory.  Paid advertising started with the Dutch normally about the new book available. Changing from black letter type to small roma typeface more words could be crammed in. Mobility along the canals was efficient so the Dutch were the most informed citizens of Europe.

1597 3 Dutch ships had establish a trading post in Java breaking  the spice trade monopoly of  the Portuguese. Every VOC ship had 300 books on board for the use of the crew, during the long voyages. The Ships bible as well as anti-Catholic polemics, and others. Bibles were printed for the  natives of colonies but the Dutch were more interested in trade than spreading spiritual succour.

1534 Wittenberg was the start of the Reformation and the publication of Luther's complete Bible in German.

1637 The first official state funded translation of the bible into Dutch Statenbijbel for the protestant Calvinist Church.

Antwerp had been the capital of vernacular education and had the best schools, over 400 Protectant teacher are known to have moved north, French schools offered a wider range of education.  People wanted an education for the mercantile needs at the time.

1648 there were 5 Dutch universities in 5 provinces 

1688 an enormous Dutch fleet set of from Hellevoetsluis to invade England via Torbay in Devon. The Protestant English nation was eager to throw of the tyranny of Catholic James II. 500 ships with 20000 troops and 5000 horses. William of Orange and the city of Amsterdam whos merchant committed their financial resources to this venture. They were worried that James II would form an alliance with Frances Louis XIV.

50,000 copies of William of Oranges Declaration in English were brought justifying the invasion, this was published and the owners of the printers had to be on duty so that copies could not get out. Printing presses were also taken with on the invasion of England The  Declaration arrived at every parish and this was the Glorious Revolution. This was the height of the Dutch Golden Age. We now start to see the decline.

1669 Rembrandt died , 1675 Vermeer died ,1666 Frans Hals died ,1679 Jan Steen died, 1682 Jacob van Ruisdael.

1672 French invasion. The north sea Herring fleet was ravaged by French privateers and the Baltic atrade was challenged by the Danish and Swedish crowns. Dutch shipbuilding declined and the Dutch cloth industry withered.

1667 New Amsterdam lost in Treaty of Breda and the Forth Anglo Dutch War after 1784 the British Empire challenged Dutch power.

1685 Louis XIV expelled the Huguenots brought their printing skills and the French language.At a time when half the books imported in to England came via the Dutch Republic.  The Dutch had a remarkable printing infrastructure and a strong domestic market for books as well as internal communications by canal. The auction system reduced risk.

Most paper was imported but with windmill power brought a new generation of paper mills. Large quantities of rags were imported. Education moved from Latin schools to more practical French education. Students who dropped out of Latin schools could never use it. The Dutch language market was too small and not everyone was Dutch speaking.  You however had a very high level of literacy and parents invested in the education of the girls. Women also played an important part as readers and consumers of the printed word. Many letters were written by women to their husband on ships without having to pay scribes. The French and German influxes were easily absorbed, and there was also a demand for English language texts.

 

Making friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and the Nazis by Ian Kershaw 2005 ,350pg.

  British Aristocrats who were taken in by the Nazis  15/1/23

While in Belfast the author visited Mount Stewart the Londonderry Family  home and found a statue of a SS helmeted man carrying a Nazi flag, it had been presented to Londonderry by Joachim von Ribbentrop who was later convicted by the Nuremberg and hanged in 1946. Lady Londonderry loathed Ribbentrop. The King called Londonderry "Charley "and he was a cousin of Churchills. 

1928 The Anglo German  association was promoting pro German feeling in Britain long before the Nazi takeover. The Jewish Lord Reading was the chairman till 1933 when it became Nazified. It now became a Nazi propaganda arm in Britain and had support of wealthy business men.

1931 Londonderry was appointed Secretary of State for Air under Ramsey Mc Donald.  He was wealthy through property and coal mines and had 5 children.  He entertained a lot and "Catered he way into the Cabinet. Experts agreed that air power would be decisive in the next war.

1933Hitler was a puzzle and that is how he was appointed Chancellor of German by a calamitous misjudgment .He turned Germany into a huge prison and yet  later everyone was prepared to give Hitler a chance. It took a while to  realize that Hitler was there to stay and that his anti-Semitic policy was not a  propaganda ploy. The foreign office dealt with other countries through as system of trust, not here

1933 He withdrew Germany from the Disarmament convention in Geneva and the League of Nations. This the British should have taken rearmament seriously. The Labour party led a pacifist campaign  in the elections.

1934 Britain was still interested in a disarmament agreement, but the talks were effectively dead.

1935 The Versailles Treaty limited the German army to 100,000 and he announced he was increasing it to 550,000. and by then he had reached parity with Britain in armaments.    France could not take action against Germany without British support. Britain's interest lay in protecting her empire and not interfering in  Europe. Anyone who had read Mein Kampf had Hitlers aims clearly stated. Some thought that Nazism was preferable to Communism. In China the Japanese were invading Manchuria.

At his height Oswald Mosely had only 50,000 supporters. Churchill was powerless but insisted that the Germans were catching up to British armaments'. S. Africa talked of neutrality while Australia and Canada wanted to avoid oversea commitment.  Only New Zeeland pledged support. Germany's air budget was 5 times what it had been before Hitler.

The French national assembly announced that conscription would be lengthened from a year to 2 years and this gave Hitler an excuse to reintroduce conscription. When Eden  visited Germany Hitler mentioned that their airforce already had parity with the British.

It was under Londonderry that Hurricanes and Spitfires started being build as well as bombers. Londonderry was replaced by Lord Halifax and Baldwin did not like his appeasement outlook.  Even out of power the Germans treated Londonderry as an influential statesman Castlereagh who negotiations in 1815 was an ancestor of Londonderry and he felt that he was capable of solving the conflict like him.

Londonderry was not an anti-Semite and his wife helped Jewish refugees but he did swollow anti-Semitic tropes.

1936 Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland.  Edward VIII abdication was a blow to the Nazi hopes.

The French government was very left wing tended towards communism. Vansittart was centre of British foreign policy and was very much against Germany.

1937 Hitler's antagonism to the German  churches both Catholic and Protestant and involvement  in the Spanish Civil war where they bombed Guernica drove another wedge between the countries. Mussolini's state visit to Germany underlined their close relations.  Ribbentrop replaced von Neurath as Hitler's foreign minister.

The Anslusch and with Hitler going to Vienna and being welcomed by crowds  at the Heldenplatz was orchestrated by the Nazi's

1938 The British public had hardly heard about the Sudetenland till now, but its aim was the destruction of Czechoslovakia.  Which had a large armaments industry ripe for the pickings. There was Nazi propaganda about the need to end German oppressions  there. Now both Japan and Italy were aligned with Germany. Hitler's unlimited intension of conquest was now realized, the foreign office had noted this as early as 1933.

Munich had shown Hitler how weak the allies were and from now the Nazi openly showed their anti Jewish pogrom's with Kristallnacht.

1939 March Hitler's entry into Prague. This marked a definite shift in British public opinion of appeasement. Now it was finally realized that Hitler's exact aims had been laid down in Myn Kamf.

The last letter to Goring, Londonderry recognized that negotiation had reached an end.

Hitler delayed the invasion of Poland hoping that there would be a  Munich to the Polish crises. British assessment was that Poland could only hold out a few weeks.

During the "phoney" war there was activity at sea the passenger liner Athenia was sunk by a German U-boat, the loss of the aircraft carrier Courageous and the Royal Oak was torpedoed. 

Churchill was a Francophile but Londonderry view of the French as poor allies proved correct. Once Churchill became PM there  were finally no more initiates to seek peace with Hitler. 

Now Londonderry worked to vindicate himself in books he wrote. He wrote that there were only 2 possible courses to take, either to become friends of Germany or to rearm, we did neither. He owed his political career till 1935 to patronage , he was not a democrat that took note of public opinion

After the war the coal mines of Londonderry's wealth were nationalized by the Labour Government.

1976 Mount Steward was handed over to the National Trust.