Featured Scholar: Elizabeth Hines

Could you introduce yourself and give a sense of the arc of your academic career?

Hello! I’m Elizabeth Hines. I studied history and grand strategy in undergrad at Yale.

(As classmates with this interviewer, I should add in the spirit of full disclosure!)

Yes, and I'm so happy to reunite at the Kissinger Center! So for my PhD at UChicago, I decided to apply that historical, strategic prism to the 17th century. I studied Anglo-Dutch relations and joint imperial ventures leading up to the First Anglo-Dutch War of 1652.

What connections do you see with the first Anglo Dutch war and more contemporary geopolitical concerns?

Well, my argument for the cause of the first Anglo Dutch war is: money.

Expand on that.

This is something I find deeply relevant to concerns today about war, commerce, empire.

And a trade war is part of this Anglo-Dutch tension?

The usual understanding is that trade competition between England and the Netherlands—and really between all European colonial powers—caused things like the series of Anglo-Dutch Wars in the second half of the 17th century. However, there was also all sorts of strange collaboration, some of it trans-imperial, happening at the same time as the competition. So in order to answer why wars broke out in the specific years they did, our explanations need to be more specific..

Could you explain a little bit more of the flip side of that puzzle: that curious collaboration?

Absolutely. During what would become the English Civil Wars—in which King Charles I and his royalists fought against the English parliament—the competing groups in England, Scotland and Ireland were all getting a solid fraction of their money from the Netherlands. The Dutch were very wealthy at the time, and very interested in foreign investment opportunities. Many saw war as one of these, and some, in fact, invested in multiple competing sides of the English wars, even though those sides could not all end up on top together. I argue that they did so, even though it seemed like an opportunity to lose money, because the privileges that they would gain would actually outweigh their losses.

What did privileges mean in this context?

The privileges these people valued so highly included things such as titles of nobility, both in Europe and in new lands around the world, as well as contracts, patents, and opportunities to hold trading monopolies in various parts of the world.

Could you expound a bit on the trans-imperial idea that you were developing a bit before?

So what I have found is a large number of ventures that were neither solely Dutch nor solely English, that were really some combination of the two, all around the world. This includes a treaty in 1619 combining the Dutch and English East India Companies. It includes a venture in Guiana, led by English investors in conjunction with the Dutch town of Vlissingen. It includes sending adventurers to Ireland, a project in which, essentially, the English hoped to kill Catholic people in Ireland and steal their land, for which they needed Dutch investment. And a whole slew of other ventures in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and beyond.

Does funding both sides of the war remind you of any contemporary concerns?

I think there are close connections to those who invest in multiple political parties competing in parts of the world. So for example, in the United States, in a two party system, we have people who fund both Democratic and Republican candidates, the advantage being not that both could win a given election, but that whoever ended up in a position of power could give the funders modern privileges that they would consider worth the investment. These could include government contracts, favorable regulations, access to world leaders, etc.

And then of course on the geopolitical side we have Turkey’s role in the Russia-Ukraine War, where it’s supplying arms and drones to the Ukrainians while continuing to trade with Russia…

It sounds very early modern!

And India is doing much the same.

Right, and we can also see the connections to modern companies that are selling arms to various purchasers. The problem is that in the 17th century, most of these weapons contracts involved repayment some years down the line, if ever, so really, these sales were loans or even gifts.

Yes, with the whole idea that you’re expecting a huge windfall from the immense gratitude of the new sovereign.

Exactly.

Pivoting a bit towards the Ax:son Johnson Fellowship in particular: what are your goals for the two years of the fellowship?

I’m very grateful to hold this post-doctoral fellowship, because one of the most important challenges for historians of the early modern period is making our work legible to modern readers. And the entire idea of this postdoc is connecting history and practice and connecting whatever specific area we study to broader concerns. The Kissinger Center’s former Associate Director Alex Bick is an inspiration to all of us in terms of straddling boundaries between academia and government today. He actually gave me advice before I began that his experience at the Kissinger Center had really helped him with his book manuscript. He said that this setting helped him reframe it in ways that would make it applicable to a broader audience than the original, specific early modern story he was telling about the Dutch West India Company.

Fantastic. And of course, Alex has gone from that focus on Dutch imperial ventures to do very serious work at the State Department and National Security Council.

Absolutely. I am constantly meeting people who tell me about new contributions of his. In the meantime, everyone should look out for his forthcoming book, Minutes of Empire.

Is there anything else you’re excited about for this fellowship?

Well, I was excited to learn that our funding comes from a Swedish philanthropic foundation founded by the Ax:son Johnson family, given that a lot of my research into Anglo-Dutch relations has ended up being Anglo-Dutch-Swedish. So many of these early Dutch entrepreneurs got involved with the Swedish government in their trading and imperial and financial ventures.

Was this because Sweden in the 17th century was seen to have lots of natural resources and land, but not the capital to invest in that resource base?

Sweden did have lots of natural resources, and many Dutch merchants began their investment in Sweden through the copper mining industry. King Gustavus Adolphus, who is famous for his military victories, and Queen Christina, who is famous partly for her complex personal and religious life, were willing to partner with foreigners in order to build on their strengths as a rising great power in this period. So it was Dutch funders and Dutch capital that started the Swedish Shipping Company, the Swedish South Company, and the Swedish Africa Company, three different Swedish Atlantic ventures. They ended up creating colonial projects like New Sweden, which is essentially the area of Delaware today.

Fascinating! Well I can’t wait to see where your research takes you over the next two years.

Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing yours as well.