Utopian Utrecht-6
Slow decline set in as other powers challenged Dutch supremacy, and in 1795 the country was easily overrun by Napoleon’s French forces. After his defeat in 1815 the Netherlands became an independent kingdom and, following Belgium’s secession in 1830, underwent a gradual process of constitutional reform into a modern democracy with a reviving economy.
The Netherlands remained neutral in the First World War (1914-1918), but in May 1940 was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. The wartime experience – traumas like the deportation and murder of most of the country’s Jewish population, as well as the increasing terror and hardship which culminated in the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-1945, but also the heroism of the Resistance – is still very much part of the collective memory.
After 1945 the country embarked upon a sustained period of reconstruction and growth. From the 1950s it was an enthusiastic participant in the European project, whilst social upheaval in the 1960s and 70s resulted in measures that made the Netherlands a byword for political consensus, liberalism and tolerance. Today it is one of the world’s wealthiest, most developed and most socially progressive nations.
Utopian Utrecht-6
Slow decline set in as other powers challenged Dutch supremacy, and in 1795 the country was easily overrun by Napoleon’s French forces. After his defeat in 1815 the Netherlands became an independent kingdom and, following Belgium’s secession in 1830, underwent a gradual process of constitutional reform into a modern democracy with a reviving economy.
The Netherlands remained neutral in the First World War (1914-1918), but in May 1940 was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. The wartime experience – traumas like the deportation and murder of most of the country’s Jewish population, as well as the increasing terror and hardship which culminated in the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-1945, but also the heroism of the Resistance – is still very much part of the collective memory.
After 1945 the country embarked upon a sustained period of reconstruction and growth. From the 1950s it was an enthusiastic participant in the European project, whilst social upheaval in the 1960s and 70s resulted in measures that made the Netherlands a byword for political consensus, liberalism and tolerance. Today it is one of the world’s wealthiest, most developed and most socially progressive nations.