Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 122, Issue 2, 2009

Late medieval travel descriptions offer an intriguing insight in how townsmen perceived the urban environment. Many pilgrims from the Low Countries on their way to Jerusalem stayed at the city of Venice, where most of them interrupted their journey in order to board one of the hundreds of ships sailing to the Levant. Their descriptions of this city represented it as a collection of almost separate spaces. The pilgri Read More

The so-called poldermodel, a model which is based on compromise and coalition between social groups, has often been portrayed as characteristic of Dutch political culture. Many consider it as a result of the need to cooperate in order to master the wet soils. It is commonly held that this could be achieved only by the direct participation of all parties in dialogue and compromise. This article explores what we actually know about Read More

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, experimental science performed in laboratories set the tone in the life sciences. In the same period, the biological work done by museum conservators was increasingly presented as ‘merely’ taxonomic and descriptive, – and, thus, lost prestige. Scientists working in museums, however, restyled themselves in the following decades, trying to restore the reputation of their work co Read More

The social democratic parties in post-war Eastern Europe have often been portrayed as nothing but cryptocommunist organisations. According to this view, social democratic ranks were increasingly infiltrated by fellow-travellers as the parties drew ever closer to the communists in the run-up to the forced mergers of political parties in 1947-1948. After the opening-up of the archives in Eastern Europe, however, some more bal Read More

Between 1956-1962, the Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans became involved in the dispute between the Netherlands and Indonesia concerning West New Guinea. In his opinion, relations between the two countries could be restored only if the Netherlands handed over West New Guinea to the Indonesians. Oltmans tried to draw attention to the issue in several ways, but did not succeed for two reasons. Firstly, in the Netherlands Read More

Until recently, very few women played a part in parliamentary and governmental politics in Western democracies. Indeed, there was a widely held belief that women did not make competent politicians. The handful of female parliamentarians who did emerge after World War II were expected to restrict themselves to policy areas traditionally regarded as suitable for women, such as health, social work, and education, and to le Read More

Following the publication of Juliana & Bernhard, het verhaal van een huwelijk 1936-1956 (Balans: Amsterdam 2008) by the historian and lawyer Cees Fasseur the Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis has invited critics to give their opinion about the book and, more broadly, about the historical study of the Dutch monarchy. Maria Grever examines the extend to which Queen Beatrix has influenced this book about the marriage of her p Read More