This groundbreaking book provides a fascinating and knowledgeable case-study of the actual interplay of three of the main driving forces in the history of the early modern era: capitalism, state-formation and war and has major implications for many general claims that have been made with regard to their history and the history of the Dutch Republic.
Prof. dr. Peer Vries, University of Vienna The publisher should be commended for making this study available to a large English-speaking audience, which it certainly deserves. Brandon's contribution is a type of economic history that has unfortunately fallen out of favor in recent decades, replaced by reams of cultural history, so one can only hope that this notable study will inspire similar social science research into the complex symbiosis of states and capital accumulation elsewhere. Every university's history department should acquire a copy for its own library collections.
Eric Mielants, Science & Society, Vol. 48:4 (2018): 592-594 Brandon's study is not only well researched, it is highly convincing and will undoubtedly lead to a reconsideration of the forces at play in the development of the early modern state.
Donald J. Harreld, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. LXX:3 (2017): 1122-1123 War, Capital, and the Dutch State (1588-1795) is a highly innovative piece of scholarship which successfully binds together the main debates relevant to understand the role of capital and war in state formation. Its value therefore reaches out far beyond the Netherlands.
Louis Sicking, Forum Navale, Vol. 73:4 (2017): 131-133 This research clearly makes an important contribution to our thinking about warfare and state formation.
Christiaan van Bochove, Continuity and Change, Vol. 32:2 (2017): 289-291