World history of the Netherlands

In the last few decades, historians have increasingly studied global history. From that perspective, they realise that the history of the Netherlands is much more closely interwoven with that of the world around us than we used to think. The links are strong, not only with adjoining areas, but also with more remote regions, and more intensively than assumed. In politics and society, in the Netherlands but also elsewhere, groups and ideas emerged that emphasise the importance of a strong national identity. In the Western world, such national identities often takes on a white and Judeo-Christian facade. That identity is regularly automatically projected onto the past. Emancipated women and tolerance for gay people are being claimed as of typical Dutch origin, for example.

Each chapter of the World history of the Netherlands is linked to a year, ranging from prehistoric times to the present day. Each contribution looks at an event from a specific international perspective, based on recent research, and focused on international influences or comparisons. The project is inspired by the Histoire mondiale de la France, which was published in 2017 with Patrick Boucheron as editor and which unleashed a lot of debate in France. The initiative for the World history of the Netherlands came from the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands.

A comprehensible contribution to the debate

The World History of the Netherlands shows how strongly the history of the Netherlands is connected to world history, and how the Netherlands stands in international comparisons. The World history of the Netherlands offers a surprising new view of the history of the Netherlands. The World history of the Netherlands has been published August 31 of 2018 by publisher Ambo Anthos, with Lex Heerma van Voss as chief editor. The other members of the editorial team are Karel Davids, Karwan Fatah-Black, Marjolein ‘t Hart, Leo Lucassen and Jeroen Touwen.

You may mail the editors to wereld@huygens.knaw.nl.