The once-in-a-generation chance to write a history of the Netherlands should not have been wasted on a Flemish-centred economic history, no matter how good it is. Blockmans’s point of departure is mapping and understanding the internal dynamics of the Netherlands,…

Urbanity was a distinguishing feature of the medieval Low Countries, but even in its most urbanised core a majority of the population continued to live outside the city walls. In his new and encompassing synthesis of the history of the…

Although the Low Countries formed a political unity only for short periods they have been seen by other European nations as a region in its own right. What created some kind of unity, as experienced by the inhabitants? My concept…