A timely reissue of Simon Schama's landmark study of the Netherlands from 1780-1813, this is a tale of a once-powerful nation's desparate struggle to survive the treacheries and brutality of European war and politics. Between 1780 and 1813 the Dutch Republic -- a country once rich enough to be called the cash till of Europe and powerful enough to make war with England -- was stripped of its colonies, invaded by its enemies, driven to the edge of bankruptcy, and, finally, reduced to becoming an appendage of the French empire -- an appendage not even the French seemed to value overmuch. Out of these events Simon Schama has constructed a gripping chronicle of revolution and privateering, constitutions and coups, in a tin y nation desperately struggling to stay afloat in a sea of geopolitics. Like his classics The Embarrassment of Riches and Citizens, Patriots and Liberators combines a mastery of historical sources with an unabashed delight in narrative. The result confirms Schama as a historian in the finest tradition -- one whose study of the past reveals volumes about the present. This is one of our most revered historians greatest works, and this new Perennial edition will reintrod