The Dutch Legacy


Book Description

The Dutch Legacy investigates the political philosophy and philosophy of religion of Franciscus van den Enden, Lodewijk Meyer, the brothers De la Court, and Adriaan Koerbagh in order to assess their contributions to the development of radical movements in the Enlightenment.




The Legacy of Dutch Brazil


Book Description

Argues that Dutch Brazil is integral to Atlantic history and made an impact well beyond the colonial and national narratives in the Netherlands and Brazil.




The Dutch Legacy: Radical Thinkers of the 17th Century and the Enlightenment


Book Description

While Spinoza’s impact on the early Enlightenment has always found due attention of historians of philosophy, several 17th-century Dutch thinkers who were active before Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus was published have been largely neglected: in particular Spinoza’s teacher, Franciscus van den Enden (Vrye Politijke Stellingen, 1665), Johan and Pieter de la Court (Consideratien van Staet, 1660, Politike discoursen, 1662), Lodewijk Meyer (Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 1666), the anonymous De Jure Ecclesiasticorum (1665), and Adriaan Koerbagh (Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd, 1668, Een Ligt schynende in duystere plaatsen, 1668). The articles of this volume focus on their political philosophy as well as their philosophy of religion in order to assess their contributions to the development of radical movements (republicanism / anti-monarchism, critique of religion, atheism) in the Enlightenment.




A History of the Netherlands


Book Description

Books offering an overview of Dutch history are few and far between in the English-speaking world. Friso Wielenga's A History of the Netherlands: From the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day fills this gap. It offers a modern, integrated outline of Dutch history from the period in which the country took shape as a geographical, administrative and political entity and undermines the presumption that Dutch history since the 16th century was characterised by political consensus and religious toleration. Domestic and foreign politics take pride of place, interwoven with the broad lines of economic and cultural developments, as Wielenga uses the Netherlands' geographical location and its international relations to better understand the partially tumultuous past and present of this small land on the North Sea. A History of the Netherlands provides an authoritative, comprehensive in-depth survey and will be of great value to students of modern European history.




The Dutch Atlantic


Book Description

The Dutch Atlantic investigates the Dutch involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and assesses the historical consequences of this for contemporary European society. Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen show how the slave trade and slavery intertwined economic, social and cultural elements, including nation-state formation in the Netherlands and across Europe. They explore the mobilization of European populations in the implementation of policies that facilitated the slave trade and examine how European countries created and expanded laws that perpetuated colonization. Addressing key themes such as the incorporation of former slaves into post-slavery states and contemporary collective efforts to forget and/or remember slavery and its legacy in the Netherlands, this is an essential text for students of European history and postcolonial studies.




New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty


Book Description

The settlers of New Netherland were obligated to uphold religious toleration as a legal right by the Dutch Republic's founding document, the 1579 Union of Utrecht, which stated that "everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion." For early American historians this statement, unique in the world at its time, lies at the root of American pluralism. New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty offers a new reading of the way tolerance operated in colonial America. Using sources in several languages and looking at laws and ideas as well as their enforcement and resistance, Evan Haefeli shows that, although tolerance as a general principle was respected in the colony, there was a pronounced struggle against it in practice. Crucial to the fate of New Netherland were the changing religious and political dynamics within the English empire. In the end, Haefeli argues, the most crucial factor in laying the groundwork for religious tolerance in colonial America was less what the Dutch did than their loss of the region to the English at a moment when the English were unusually open to religious tolerance. This legacy, often overlooked, turns out to be critical to the history of American religious diversity. By setting Dutch America within its broader imperial context, New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of a conflict integral to the histories of the Dutch republic, early America, and religious tolerance.




Narratives of Low Countries History and Culture


Book Description

This edited collection explores the ways in which our understanding of the past in Dutch history and culture can be rethought to consider not only how it forms part of the present but how it can relate also to the future. Divided into three parts – The Uses of Myth and History, The Past as Illumination of Cultural Context, and Historiography in Focus – this book seeks to demonstrate the importance of the past by investigating the transmission of culture and its transformations. It reflects on the history of historiography and looks critically at the products of the historiographic process, such as Dutch and Afrikaans literary history. The chapters cover a range of disciplines and approaches: some authors offer a broad view of a particular period, such as Jonathan Israel's contribution on myth and history in the ideological politics of the Dutch Golden Age, while others zoom in on specific genres, texts or historical moments, such as Benjamin Schmidt’s study of the doolhof, a word that today means ‘labyrinth’ but once described a 17th-century educational amusement park. This volume, enlightening and home to multiple paths of enquiry leading in different directions, is an excellent example of what a past-present doolhof might look like.




Dutch Racism


Book Description

Dutch Racism is the first comprehensive study of its kind. The approach is unique, not comparative but relational, in unraveling the legacy of racism in the Netherlands and the (former) colonies. Authors contribute to identifying the complex ways in which racism operates in and beyond the national borders, shaped by European and global influences, and intersecting with other systems of domination. Contrary to common sense beliefs it appears that old-fashioned biological notions of “race” never disappeared. At the same time the Netherlands echoes, if not leads, a wider European trend, where offensive statements about Muslims are an everyday phenomenon. Dutch Racism challenges readers to question what happens when the moral rejection of racism looses ground. The volume captures the layered nature of Dutch racism through a plurality of registers, methods, and disciplinary approaches: from sociology and history to literary analysis, art history and psychoanalysis, all different elements competing for relevance, truth value, and explanatory power. This range of voices and visions offers illuminating insights in the two closely related questions that organize this book: what factors contribute to the complexity of Dutch racism? And why is the concept of racism so intensely contested? The volume will speak to audiences across the humanities and social sciences and can be used as textbook in undergraduate as well as graduate courses. Philomena Essed is professor of Critical Race, Gender and Leadership studies, Antioch University (USA), PhD in Leadership and Change Program. Her books and edited volumes include Everyday Racism; Understanding Everyday Racism, Race Critical Theories; A Companion to Gender Studies (“outstanding” 2005 CHOICE award); and, Clones, Fakes and Posthumans: Cultures of Replication. Isabel Hoving is diversity officer at the Leiden University and affiliated with the Department of Film and Literary Studies of Leiden University. Her books include In Praise of New Travellers, Veranderingen van het alledaagse, and several other volumes on migration, Caribbean literatures, African literature and art. In addition to her academic work, she is an awarded youth writer.




A Concise History of the Netherlands


Book Description

This book offers a comprehensive yet compact history of this surprisingly little-known but fascinating country, from pre-history to the present.




The Dutch Overseas Empire, 1600–1800


Book Description

This pioneering history of the Dutch Empire provides a new comprehensive overview of Dutch colonial expansion from a comparative and global perspective. It also offers a fascinating window into the early modern societies of Asia, Africa and the Americas through their interactions.