De genese van de groei. The Growth of the Antwerp Market van Herman Van der Wee een halve eeuw (1963-2013)

The Genesis of the Growth. The Growth of the Antwerp Market by Herman Van der Wee (1963-2013). Herman Van der Wee’s The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy (Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries) was published just over fifty years ago. The three-volume doctoral thesis by the Leuven economic historian remains one of the most authoritative monographs in postwar Belgian and European historiography. This article explores the book’s sources of inspiration, notably foreign influences on its themes and concepts. It discusses the way in which the book was developed and structured, as well as how it was publicly defended. The article ends with a brief overview of the book’s reception and a reflection, with its author, on its main conclusions.