The 'new inequality' of the 1980's and 1990's has recently given rise to a lively debate about the relationship between economic growth and income distribution. This debate is the background of the study by Lee Soltow an Jan Luiten van Zanden, who, staying close to the sources, have mapped in some detail the long-term development of income and wealth inequality in the Netherlands between c. 1500 and the present. Their starting point is the hypothesis of Simon Kuznets that income inequality increased during the first phase of modern economic growth, but that in the second phase, which begins in most Western countries around the turn of the twentieth century, a marked levelling out of income differences followed. The development of inequality during the Golden Age, when growth resulted in a marked increase in inequality seems to confirm this idea. However, the analysis of the connection between growth and inequality in the nineteenth and twentieth century leads them to question the Kuznets hypothesis