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 tiny nation desperately struggling to stay afloat in the seas of geopolitics. Like his 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.