Lecturer at Leiden University until 2005, Alexander de Groot presents in this volume a collection of essays on the history of contact between the Netherlands and Turkey. The Dutch-Turkish connection is perhaps best remembered in the Tulip craze of the seventeenth century, but de Groot reminds us that it was in fact both earlier and deeper. De Groot starts with the Dutch community in Istanbul, skipping the stories of prior pilgrims passing through, showing that commerce lay behind the closest relationships between the Ottoman Empire and the Netherlands. This holds true for both of the major points of contact, Istanbul and Izmir, the two leading commercial centres. De Groot also looks at the ups and downs of Ottoman-Dutch political and military encounters from the Battle of Lepanto until the Turkish nationalist struggle of the 1920s.