Much modern (Le. post-17S0) economic history is concerned with success
in that a vast body of literature focuses its attention upon the
experience of industrialisation and economic growth or upon relative
differences in performance once the growth process is underway. The
explanations advanced frequently hinge on those supply and demand
factors, perceptible during the growth period itself, which may have
helped or hindered economic progress. The problem which arises with this
approach is whether those forces attributed with having pulled a country
forward were the same as those which, in their absence, had held it
back. For example, the growth of'inter- national demand may be seen as a
major stimulus in the economic development of a particular country, but
its effectiveness as a stimu- lant may have been contingent upon the
prior removal of quite diffe- rent obstacles to growth. In these
circumstances it would be quite wrong to attribute lack of earlier
development to the absence of international demand. Thus the study of a
period preceeding discer- nible growth in a sector of the economy may
tell historians as much about the reasons for subsequent growth as a
study of the growth period itself. This was my initial reason for
choosing to research into the industrial development in the Netherlands
in the first half of the nineteenth century: that it was an interval in
economic history usually interpreted as one of stagnation, of missed
opportunities and even of economic decline.
