How Did Amsterdam's Prosperity?

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From New Amsterdam to New York, openness and tolerance were good business Openness and enterprise were the foundations of Amsterdam's prosperity. The city as well as the tiny country of Holland achieved their premier position in the modern era by creating a dynamic network of global trade. Most people know that New York was originally New Amsterdam, and that the Dutch people were the pioneers of capitalism. But how did it play out? It began with voyages of discovery and trade, to all corners of the globe. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the age of maritime exploration, the eighteenth and nineteenth of marine empires. The Dutch made their fortunes as mercantile traders, bringing resources and luxury goods from the corners of the world - spices from the islands of the East Indies, furs and timber from North America, tulips from Persia. Less creditably, they transported slaves from Africa to labor on the sugar plantations of the West …show more content…

Philosophers like Erasmus and Spinoza outlined the belief that liberalism and tolerance were also the most economically and politically advantageous beliefs. This wisdom was learned the hard way, in the religious wars that tore apart Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Dutch Calvinism too learned the value of religious tolerance. Its austere doctrines sat uneasily beside the lavish lifestyle of the Amsterdam merchants, but between the two, the spirit of capitalism was born. New Amsterdam became New York and changed hands from the Dutch to the English. But it is not only Dutch place names and styles of architecture scattered across the five boroughs and all of the Empire State that beat witness to this moment in history. The values of openness, tolerance, liberalism and engagement with the world remain the hallmarks of New York, city and state alike. They have made it one of the economic, intellectual and cultural centers of the

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