By addressing the theory associated with studying nationalism from below, and approaching the case study of the German occupation of the Netherlands during WWII, this thesis expands the...Show moreBy addressing the theory associated with studying nationalism from below, and approaching the case study of the German occupation of the Netherlands during WWII, this thesis expands the methodological toolbox with which to approach the evidence problem associated with historical research on nationalism from below. By taking the Stimmungsberichte (mood reports) written by the Wehrmacht, as ledgers of everyday actions performed by the silent majority of the Dutch population, this thesis assesses the fluctuation of nationalistic sentiment in terms of the commonly used repertoires of contention. This leads to a more dynamic perception of nationalism in the Netherlands during this unique time in the history of the nation-state.Show less
How did racialized ideas about work and rest change in the Dutch East-Indies towards the end of the nineteenth century? In the Dutch colony, the idea that Javanese worker showed a natural tendency...Show moreHow did racialized ideas about work and rest change in the Dutch East-Indies towards the end of the nineteenth century? In the Dutch colony, the idea that Javanese worker showed a natural tendency for laziness and lacked the urge to improve their material condition was highly influential and repeatedly invoked to justify coercive labor practices. Whereas the Dutch used to consider Javanese’s alleged laziness as a stable and in-built feature of their inferior “race”, this study shows that they increasingly started to treat it as a by-product of their deplorable socio-economic circumstances by the turn of the century. Given that the Cultivation System (1830-1870) robbed the Javanese off the fruits of their own labor, the Dutch asserted that the natives had failed to develop the “natural” materialist urges they associated with industrial capitalism. In attempts to cure Javanese agricultural workers of their supposed indolence, the agents of capital therefore endeavored to inculcate work ethic from above via the so-called Ethical Policy of 1901. This study not only documents this discursive change, but also aims to understand and explain it. To this end, it places the historical transformation of the stereotype against the background of the racial capitalist regime change it emerged from: the shift from a system in which natives were excluded from the White economy to one in which they were demanded to assimilate. My findings fill up the empirical lacuna on the circulation of this racial-economic trope in the late nineteenth century and advances the historiography on the topic by thoroughly embedding it within Black Marxist theorizing.Show less
In deze scriptie wordt onderzocht waarom Nederlandse kinderen na de Tweede Wereldoorlog naar het buitenland werden uitgezonden en buitenlandse kinderen gelijktijdig in Nederland werden...Show moreIn deze scriptie wordt onderzocht waarom Nederlandse kinderen na de Tweede Wereldoorlog naar het buitenland werden uitgezonden en buitenlandse kinderen gelijktijdig in Nederland werden ondergebracht. In deze scriptie worden motieven voor de organisatie in kaart gebracht, wordt de uitzending vergeleken met andere kinderuitzendingen en wordt vanuit een governance perspectief bekeken welke actoren betrokken waren bij de vorming en uitvoering van beleid en wat hun invloed was op keuzes voor opvang, transport, verlengd verblijf, terugkeer, opvoeding en onderwijs op de plaats van opvang. Uit dit onderzoek blijkt dat het laten aansterken van de kinderen bij deze en andere kinderuitzendingen de aanleiding vormde voor de organisatie hiervan. Ook de mogelijkheid tot (her)opvoeden van de kinderen bleek een rol te spelen. Doordat veel organisaties betrokken waren bij de kinderuitzending ontstonden onderlinge concurrentie en tegengestelde belangen op nationaal en internationaal niveau.Show less
In older scholarship, it was often claimed that Christian martyrdom contributed significantly to the conversion of the Roman Empire. This assertion, however, has been significantly criticized in...Show moreIn older scholarship, it was often claimed that Christian martyrdom contributed significantly to the conversion of the Roman Empire. This assertion, however, has been significantly criticized in recent decades, so that conversion in response to witnessing acts of Christian martyrdom now appears to have been relatively minor. In order to both elaborate on and critically evaluate these criticisms, the present thesis compares a number of Christian and ‘pagan’ texts from the second and third centuries CE that deal with martyrdom and/or ‘noble death’. While the thesis pays attention to issues surrounding the scale on which martyrdom occurred and the extent to which witnessing the torture and execution of Christians may have inspired conversion, its main focus is on the importance of martyr texts to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. ‘Christianization’ here is used in a more general sense, and includes not only conversion, but also the formation of Christian (group)identity and the catechesis of new members. With regards to the possibility of Christian texts being used to convert outsiders or instruct the newly-initiated, the thesis works from the assumption that these ‘pagan’ audiences would have been more likely to adopt a favourable view of Christian martyrdom – and perhaps concomitantly, Christianity – insofar as its (literary) representations presented it as similar to noble death. Simultaneously, the thesis argues that Christian martyr texts contain several unique elements, principally religious in character, that allowed them to out-live ‘pagan’ noble death traditions like that of the Acta Alexandrinorum. These shared and unique aspects are recovered through an in-depth analysis and comparison of a number of Christian and ‘pagan’ texts. All in all, the findings of the thesis generally agree with earlier revisionist publications, and suggest that conversion induced by martyrdom was rare, and that the importance of martyr texts to Early Christianity mostly lay in their ability to provide Christian groups with powerful communities identities and moral exemplars.Show less
Een cultuurhistorische analyse van Nederlandse diplomaten in de twintigste eeuw, waarbij in de eerste plaats op basis van diplomatieke memoires een beeld geschetst wordt van de grote veranderingen...Show moreEen cultuurhistorische analyse van Nederlandse diplomaten in de twintigste eeuw, waarbij in de eerste plaats op basis van diplomatieke memoires een beeld geschetst wordt van de grote veranderingen in de habitus en persona van de de diplomaat en de diplomatieke cultuur in Nederland tussen 1900-2000. Tegen de achtergrond van een democratiserende maatschappij bleef het corps diplomatique lange tijd een bastion van adel en patriciaat, waarbij een belangrijke brugfunctie was weggelegd voor corporale studentenverenigingen. Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog begint een decennialange transformatie, waarbij het aristocratische karakter van de diplomatie geleidelijk aan plaatsmaakt voor een meer bureaucratische bedrijfscultuur.Show less
In dit onderzoek wordt de herkomst en ontwikkeling onderzocht van de Nederlandse traditie om de verkiezingsprogramma's van politieke partijen door te rekenen op hun economische effecten. Deze...Show moreIn dit onderzoek wordt de herkomst en ontwikkeling onderzocht van de Nederlandse traditie om de verkiezingsprogramma's van politieke partijen door te rekenen op hun economische effecten. Deze traditie, waarmee in 1986 werd aangevangen, was een reactie op de hoge werkloosheid in die tijd. Meer nog dan in andere Westerse landen werd in Nederland de economie bovendien gezien als een exacte wetenschap, die door middel van modellen accuraat de toekomst zou kunnen voorspellen. Maar er lagen wel degelijk ideologische veronderstellingen aan de basis van de modellen van het planbureau. Sinds de jaren '70 had daar een omslag plaatsgevonden van Keynesiaanse naar neoklassieke modellen. De toenemende invloed van de doorrekeningen in campagnetijd liet partijen echter weinig keuze: om serieus genomen te worden, moest je wel doorrekenen. Dit faciliteerde zowel de 'no-nonsense' managerspolitiek van de kabinetten-Lubbers, als de gedepolitiseerde consensuspolitiek van Paars. Tegelijkertijd leidden deze bestuurdersmentaliteit en het gebrek aan strijd in de politiek tot de Fortuynrevolte van 2002.Show less
This thesis examines political attitudes towards different groups of migrants arriving in Britain between 1948 and 1971. Specifically, it examines how the creation of the National Health Service ...Show moreThis thesis examines political attitudes towards different groups of migrants arriving in Britain between 1948 and 1971. Specifically, it examines how the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 influenced attitudes towards different migrant groups. It pays close attention to racial inequalities comparing the different receptions of predominantly black and brown migrant groups from the New Commonwealth states and the predominantly white migrant groups from continental Europe and Old Commonwealth states. Methodologically it uses a combination of close and distant reading techniques on parliamentary transcripts and civil service records, particularly from the British Ministry of Health. The central finding is that far from migrants being treated with universal scepticism, there was a very clear hierarchy of desirability into which different migrant groups were sorted, and further that this hierarchy was structured around perceived racial difference.Show less
The role of alcohol in crime and its prosecution in eighteenth-century Leiden is examined in this thesis. The chronological delineation of this case study focussing on the eighteenth century is...Show moreThe role of alcohol in crime and its prosecution in eighteenth-century Leiden is examined in this thesis. The chronological delineation of this case study focussing on the eighteenth century is right on the cusp of the nineteenth century’s great civilization campaign against alcohol. This case study allows for a discussion of the relationship between alcohol and disorder prior to the century of the great temperance crusades. It is fascinating to see how far we can track this pattern back to the eighteenth century, when both production and consumption skyrocketed. The topic is multi-faceted, addressing the research question - What role does alcohol play in crime and how is it manifested on two levels, namely (1) in criminal behaviour and (2) in its prosecution? The goal of this study is to learn more about people's attitudes toward alcohol by focusing on the criminalization of excessive drinking.Show less
Like other nineteenth-century reform movements in Great Britain and the United States, the vegetarian movement sought to bring about lasting change. It intertwined with other movements as disparate...Show moreLike other nineteenth-century reform movements in Great Britain and the United States, the vegetarian movement sought to bring about lasting change. It intertwined with other movements as disparate as abolitionism on the one hand and eugenics on the other. However, the change it sought was not merely institutional or social. The type of reform vegetarians advocated was at its heart something that progressed on an intimate, individual level. Changing the food one ate meant changing one’s relationship to history, tradition, culture, religion—one’s daily routines, carried out with family, in the intimacy of domestic spaces. But it also involved changes to one’s habits as a consumer, whether that meant sourcing (or creating!) new foods, growing one’s own, or even foraging in the forest for edibles. And since the foods we eat are the building blocks of our embodied selves, vegetarianism represented a fundamental change to the very substance of the human body. Because it intruded deeply into the personal realm, involving the universal daily act of eating, the discourse on eating vegetables was larger than the vegetarian movement itself, touching not only other reform movements, but facets of culture connected to class, gastronomy, colonial ties, gender and religion, to name but a few. A strange feature of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century vegetarianism—given its name—was that in many ways it was more about not eating meat than it was about eating vegetables. It is perhaps for this reason that although vegetarians had plenty to say about the virtues of vegetables, studies of vegetarianism tend to lack nuance when they situate these arguments beside what others were saying about eating vegetables, focusing largely on reactionary statements and missing other strands of discourse around vegetable eating within the mainstream. Therefore, my research takes this wider view, examining British and American vegetarian, vegetable and other cookbooks to situate the vegetarian imperative towards plant-based eating in the context of contemporary attitudes towards vegetables themselves, whether connected to vegetarianism or not.Show less
This thesis explores one of the major lacunae in migration history: what happened to the descendants of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who migrated to the Dutch Republic in the early...Show moreThis thesis explores one of the major lacunae in migration history: what happened to the descendants of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who migrated to the Dutch Republic in the early modern period? Immigrants constituted a large segment of the urban population: in Amsterdam around 1650 circa forty percent of the resident population was born abroad. Thousands of these immigrants got married in Amsterdam and had children. The lives of these children, but also of the (great)grandchildren, had not been studied until now. Profiting from recent advancements in the digitisation and indexation of the parish registers and the notarial archives of Amsterdam, this thesis analyses the processes of integration, assimilation and social mobility of nine families with a Norwegian or Danish migration background between 1660 and 1811. What was their process of integration like, and to what extent did they experience social mobility?Show less
In 1684, amidst calls for reform and action against corruption, the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) appointed a ‘Committee of Redress’ and dispatched Commissioner General, Hendrik...Show moreIn 1684, amidst calls for reform and action against corruption, the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) appointed a ‘Committee of Redress’ and dispatched Commissioner General, Hendrik Adriaan van Reede, to inspect VOC trade posts and their staff in Asia’s ‘Western Quarters’, which includes Coromandel. This study is an attempt to determine the extent to which van Reede’s actions and decisions in Coromandel can be justified within the framework of the Committee’s original objectives, given how this is not satisfactorily explained in extant historiography. Further, the dominant view in extant literature on this subject is that the VOC directors’ ulterior motive for setting up this Committee was to replace those in Coromandel linked to the Rijckloff van Goens Sr. faction with those linked to their own. Therefore, this study also takes factionalism across the VOC’s rank and file into account. To answer the overarching question, this study relies substantially on archival research and literature review. Archival material considered for this study includes VOC records such as interrogations, statements, missives, and reports, as well as correspondence between van Reede, the VOC directors, and the VOC leadership in ‘Batavia’. This reveals two points of note. First, that van Reede was carefully balancing between serving the interests of the VOC directors and his own; and second, that he did not specifically target the van Goens Sr. faction in Coromandel.Show less
This thesis explores different neo-fascist perspectives on the European unification process as well as on the development of a form of European identity in the 1950s and 1960s. More precisely, the...Show moreThis thesis explores different neo-fascist perspectives on the European unification process as well as on the development of a form of European identity in the 1950s and 1960s. More precisely, the research focuses on Italian and French neo-fascist magazines and actors and adopts a transnational and intellectual historical approach. Attention is also devoted to the non-European influences on the development of such neo-fascist ideas.Show less
During a great part of the twentieth century, the Lawa Railway connected Paramaribo with the interior of Suriname. This railway had been built by the Dutch to catalyse the emerging gold industry at...Show moreDuring a great part of the twentieth century, the Lawa Railway connected Paramaribo with the interior of Suriname. This railway had been built by the Dutch to catalyse the emerging gold industry at the turn of the twentieth century. However, gold finds soon dropped and the railway never became profitable. Therefore, the railway has often been described as a failure. This thesis trancends this failure rhetoric in terms of profit and instead looks at how the Lawa Railway functioned socio-economically. Through a paradigm of Alltagsgeschichte, I unraveled how the people of Suriname have used and repurposed the Lawa Railway. I argue that they primarily used the railway in three guises: to go to school, to recreate and to enhance their livelihoods. At the same time, the train was highly important for medical care. I found, for instance, that it functioned as a policlinic on wheels as well as an ambulance. This study shows how it is possible to transcend a colonial rhetoric of failure, by closely following the 'subject of failure'. Through a story of gold-mining, vending, recreating, illnesses and hardships in the jungle, I have in a holistic way exposed the socio-economics of life in Suriname in the twentieth century and presented a narrative in which the Lawa Railway is the main protagonist.Show less
The Dutch East India Company has been ascribed many faces and many colours during its existence, and these still echo throughout the public debate and national discourse. This thesis will...Show moreThe Dutch East India Company has been ascribed many faces and many colours during its existence, and these still echo throughout the public debate and national discourse. This thesis will contribute to new directions in the historiography of Dutch Empire by focusing on the Dutch East India Company governors and the narratives they communicated in the so-called 'Memories van Overgave', how these changed between 1700-1750, how these differed between three different regions: Bengal, Ambon, and Ceylon, and what the implications are for the organisational identity of the Dutch East India Company. In order to do so, this thesis employs a new analytical framework that positions the governor in the centre of two different relations: the relation he had to the institute he was a part of, and the relation he had with the proverbial 'other' he encountered. Everything combined, this will show the multi-faceted nature of the governors, the Dutch East India Company, and that the identity of the Dutch East India Company was not static, but flexible and ever-changing.Show less
To the modern observer there seems to have been quite a large grey area between private and public warfare in the late middle-ages. It is often quite hard to distinguish between violence committed...Show moreTo the modern observer there seems to have been quite a large grey area between private and public warfare in the late middle-ages. It is often quite hard to distinguish between violence committed in name of a public authority and violence on a private title. This thesis uses a case-study of a violent conflict in the border region between Holland and the Sticht (Utrecht) ca. 1420, to explore if it is possible and useful to distinguish between the private and public elements in late medieval warfare. A large number of the border lords where able to wage war under their own banner for their own goals, and without guidance or direction of the central authority. Based on my findings I argue that private and public forms of warfare went hand in hand in the late middle-ages. Princes where more interested in channelling this violence towards their opponents, than in establishing a monopoly on violence.Show less
