TY - BOOK ID - 128646254 TI - American diplomats in the Netherlands, 1815-50 PY - 1993 SN - 0312089740 9780312089740 PB - New York (N.Y.) : St. Martin's press, DB - UniCat KW - Diplomats KW - Diplomats KW - Diplomats KW - Diplomats KW - History KW - History KW - United States KW - Netherlands KW - United States KW - Foreign relations KW - Foreign relations KW - Foreign relations UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:128646254 AB - This book is a case study in American-European relations in the first half of the nineteenth century. Based upon the official and private correspondence of American diplomats to the Netherlands, it fills an important gap in U.S. diplomatic historiography. Introduced with a sketch of the foundations and organization of U.S. foreign policy and a survey of the first American diplomats in the Netherlands in the late eighteenth century, this book offers a gallery of biographies of their successors stationed at The Hague and Brussels, who viewed the European and Dutch situation more or less through sceptical American lenses and tended to stress and exaggerate the antithesis between the Old and New Worlds. Contrary to the popular image of nineteenth-century American diplomats as incompetent amateurs, Dr. van Minnen argues that, at least in the Dutch case, they performed their duties well and that their reports provided the United States with valuable information on the ins and outs of Europe in general and Dutch-American relations in particular. ER -