The state of the Delta. Waterworks. Waterworks, urban development and nation building in the Netherlands

The central thesis of this book is that the political history of the Dutch state is closely intertwined with the control over the sea and the estuaries of the rivers Rhine and Meuse. This is of course not a very original thought, ‘polderen’ is generally seen as a second nature of Dutch politics, and the continuity in the structure of the polder districts over the centuries, and its impact on Dutch public administration is unprecedented in the western world