Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 122, Issue 1, 2009

The welfare state’s turn towards neoliberalism in the 1980s fundamentally altered the structure of the American economy. Despite impressive growth, inequality increased, and both public and private debt soared. This article explores various arguments concerning the roles which Ronald Reagan and supply-side economic theory played in this transition. While a certain consensus has been reached as to the short-term effe Read More

In the 1950s European colonialism was more vigorous than is often assumed. Despite growing international resistance, European colonial powers tried fervently to cling on to the remnants of their once great empires. Yet, little is known of the way they perceived and acted towards each others’ attempts to keep their empires alive. This article explores this topic by studying how the Netherlands and France interacted diplomaticall Read More

Since a broad public debate on German suffering was initiated in the late 1990’s, the German experience of the allied bombings has often been portrayed as a taboo, or, in W.G. Sebalds words, a ‘family secret’. Recent research, however, has disproved this taboo thesis. In this article the recent volumes edited by Helmut Schnatz, Bill Niven, Dietmar Süß, and Jörg Echternkamp, and the dissertation projects of Jörg Arnold a Read More

Hygiene, good health, and education have always been closely linked in the history of mankind. In this article we pay attention to the role of sea hospitals within the broader movement and struggle for improved hygiene. They were built for children suffering from rachitis and scrofulosis. The focus here is on the French sea hospital at Berck-sur-Mer (founded in 1861) and the two Belgian sea hospitals (founded in 1881 and 188 Read More

The rural has always been an established field of historical research. However, over the course of the twentieth century, the countryside was subject to significant changes in its spatial and social structure. These transformations made ‘rurality’ an increasingly problematic notion and encouraged a debate regarding definition in which mainly social scientists, geographers, and planning experts were engaged. In this arti Read More

This article explores the historical actors and societal factors existing at the beginning of land consolidation as an instrument of Dutch rural planning. The call for a legal framework to redistribute fragmented parcels in an efficient and rational manner, was growing from the 1890’s onwards. Because of the ideological barriers in the political center, in which the division between public and private interests was the mo Read More

Jacques Van Doorn’s extremely critical book on German socialism has received in The Netherlands little criticism itself. In this article the author argues that the book does indeed deserve much scrutiny. He is of the opinion that Van Doorn misinterprets German socialism and as a sociologist overlooks the important work that has been done by historians.