%0 Journal Article
%T The Dutch Republic as a Bourgeois Society
%A Maarten Prak
%J BMGN : Low Countries Historical Review
%D 2010
%I Utrecht University Library Open Access Journals
%X Historians have often portrayed the Dutch Republic as the first ¡®bourgeois¡¯ society. What they had in mind was an early example of a society dominated by the sort of middle class that emerged in most other European countries after the French and Industrial Revolutions. In this article, ¡®bourgeois¡¯ is perceived in a slightly different way. By looking at the ¡®bourgeois¡¯ as ¡®citizens¡¯ ¨C often, but not necessarily, middle class in a social sense ¨C the article paints a picture of a plethora of blossoming urban civic institutions. Such civic institutions also existed in other European countries. What set the Dutch Republic apart, however, and indeed made it an early example of a ¡®bourgeois¡¯ society, was the dominance of these civic institutions in the Republic¡¯s socio-political life.
%K Citizenship
%K Dutch Republic
%U http://www.bmgn-lchr.nl/index.php/bmgn/article/view/7117