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Previous Volume 356:2657-2658 June 21, 2007 Number 25 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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By Harold J. Cook. 562 pp., illustrated. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2007. $35. ISBN 978-0-300-11796-7.

Trying to name a defining national characteristic is perilous, since the variation between individuals is far greater than the variation between stereotypes. A person who, despite this stricture, ventures to find a single denominator for the Dutch might say they are pragmatic — and that historically their pragmatism often outweighed their adherence to principles. An apt example, elaborated in one of the last chapters of Harold Cook's Matters of Exchange, is the way in which the Dutch East India Company managed not only to establish but also to maintain a trading post in Japan, despite the strict isolationism of the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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