DESIGN + COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
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A FAVORITE INTERVIEW - CLUES FROM HISTORY

How, in the nadir of the Little Ice Age, did the Dutch create a Golden Age?
Interview with Anne McCants, Ann Friedlaender Professor of History at MIT


During the Little Ice Age, the Dutch had the largest merchant fleet in Europe.


History shows that not everywhere fares equally poorly when faced with climatic stresses. Open-access societies — ones that tolerate a diversity of views and do not restrict agency to a preordained elite — have generally proved more innovative and resilient than less-open ones. In the case of the17th century Dutch Republic, they were a society that cared about people in need. Nor did they find it shameful to achieve financial, and thereby social, success through hard work, ingenuity, and science. Importantly, everyone was entitled to have a go: immigrants, sons-of-laborers, and remarkably even women to a greater extent than anywhere else at the time."

Read the full Interview

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