Wars Overseas focuses on Dutch military actions outside Europe in the early-modern period. Those actions were rooted in the Eighty Years' War, the conflict between Spain and the northern Netherlands that led to the creation of the independent Dutch Republic. The Republic was determined to trade in tropical products from Asia, Africa and the Americas, commodities on which the Iberians had had a monopoly for a century or more. To do so, however, it would have to fight. The fledgling State did not itself have the resources for such an undertaking and effectively left it to two monopolistic trading companies, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (WIC).

In Asia, through an adroit policy of war and diplomacy, the VOC built a powerful trade-based empire that lasted for almost two centuries. The WIC began with a large-scale offensive in the Atlantic area, operating in both Africa and the Americas, albeit with less success than its sister company in Asia. Empire builders like Jan Pietersz Coen and Johan Maurits of Nassau played crucial roles. How did they act? What resources did they have? And how did the military revolution in Europe impact the process of Dutch expansion overseas?

Wars Overseas, the first comprehensive overview of Dutch military action in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, examines these and other questions in detail, while thematic chapters focus on the deployment of sailors, soldiers and ships, on weapons and fortification-building, and on the confrontation with non-European allies and adversaries.