Audiobook · read by volunteers
History of Holland
George Edmundson (1848–1930)
Read by Esther, Marian Brown, Kirsten Ferreri, Riccardo Fasol, Gesine, Marloes Schoonheim, Cori Samuel, hefyd, Jim Mowatt, Sibella Denton · 37 chapters · 19 h 43
About the book
How did a small country of marshes and rivers, much of it below sea level, hold off one of the mightiest empires in Europe and become a great trading power? George Edmundson tells the story of the Dutch people from the Burgundian dukes of the fifteenth century to the reign of Queen Wilhelmina in the early twentieth. He explains how the Burgundian and Habsburg rulers shaped the Netherlands, how discontent grew into revolt and why William the Silent holds so central a place in the nation’s memory. The book also looks at the Dutch Republic, its system of government and its place in Europe: the Twelve Years’ Truce, the trading companies, the age of John de Witt, the wars with England and France, the French occupation and the separation of Holland and Belgium. At nearly twenty hours, divided among ten voices, this is a thorough and readable account for anyone curious about Holland’s history.
Introduction
George Edmundson, who lived from 1848 to 1930, was a British historian, and his History of Holland appeared in 1922. As Edmundson explains in his preface, the title is justified because the province of Holland played the leading part in the War of Independence and in all the later history of the Dutch state and people.
The book is a single-volume survey, and its chapters trace the development of the Low Countries across the centuries. The opening chapters set the scene with a general preface and a prologue, then discuss the Burgundian Netherlands and Habsburg rule. They go on to describe the prelude to the revolt and the revolt itself, the career of William the Silent, the beginnings of the Dutch Republic and its system of government. In this way the reader is led from the late Middle Ages through the seventeenth-century golden age and the upheavals of the revolutionary era to the reign of Queen Wilhelmina, with an epilogue to close.
Edmundson writes in the manner of an early twentieth-century narrative historian: the emphasis falls mainly on political events, rulers and wars, though there are also chapters on trade and on letters, science and art. Readers should bear this in mind, and may wish to pair it with more recent work. Even so, it is a clear and well-organised account that gives a solid sense of the main outlines.
The recording has 37 chapters and lasts almost twenty hours. It is shared among ten LibriVox volunteers. It suits patient listeners, and rewards them with an overview of one of Europe’s most distinctive histories.
Public domain
George Edmundson died in 1930: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text