Pepijn Brandon is Assistant Professor in Economic and Social History at the VU Amsterdam and Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History. He is the author of War, Capital, and the Dutch State (1588-1795) (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2015; paperback: Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017). While writing his contribution for this journal, he was a fellow at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.