Would the Real Pioneers Please Stand up? : Confronting the Ambiguous Narrative of the Dutch Sonderweg in the Late Middle Ages

Sam Geens

doi:10.52024/7kx1x067

Author(s)

Sam Geens Antwerp University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52024/7kx1x067

Abstract

In Pioneers of Capitalism, Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden construct a masterful narrative of the Dutch economy in premodern times. Through the Dutch case, the authors show that capitalism can also have sustained positive effects whenever this mode of production is combined with a strong civil society. Institutions of cooperation, such as guilds or representative bodies, may serve as a check on the pursuit of unlimited profit. Two questions are central to the book: why was the Netherlands one of the pioneers of capitalism, and what was its impact on Dutch society? While the other contributions in this issue focus primarily on the latter question, I will concentrate my reflections on the former.

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Author Biography

Sam Geens, Antwerp University

Sam Geens is a senior researcher and associate lecturer at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on living standards and crises in the late Middle Ages. He obtained his PhD degree in history from the University of Antwerp with a dissertation titled “A Golden Age for labour? Income and wealth before and after the Black Death in the Southern Low Countries and the Republic of Florence (1275-1550).” Geens has published several articles and chapters on the impact of pandemics, wars, and famines on economic inequality. His most recent project aims to retrace the social position of single women in late medieval Flanders.