Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 122, Issue 4, 2009

The current debate on globalisation has increased the interest in global history. This interdisciplinary approach to study the past offers an integrated analysis of various supranational processes. Despite a regular focus on long-term developments, it seems suitable for a new way of analysing the global interactions during World War II. By doing so, it will enlarge our understanding of the transnational nature of this period, and of the tensions and parallels between local, national, regional and global developments. In order to establish the extent to which this total war can be regarded as history of globalisation, differentiation between four areas is suggested: economic, political, military and socio-cultural globalisation – each covering a complex mixture of developments with differences in (geographical and social) range, pace and intensity. This article furthermore explores the changing historical culture in which the memories and representations of World War II have obtained a more global and multicultural character. Although this may, at first sight, result in a more uniform collective memory, it does pose new questions concerning the variety in interpretation, contextualisation and transnational dissemination of war-related memories.

The Second World War was the greatest man-made disaster in history. The war destroyed countless human lives and left indelible marks on modern memory. This essay examines the impact of this catastrophic event on economic development. Using a wide array of recent studies in economic history and the history of technology, the author argues that, contrary to what intuition would suggest, the impact was in reality rather limited. A review of data on exports of commodities and capital, technological development, productivity, consumption patterns, and institutional change shows that the only lasting economic effect of the war was its influence on institutions.

The Second World War in Indonesia should not be viewed as an isolated event, but in conjunction with the wider events of decolonization and the formation of independent states, and also in a wider geographic framework. This article examines the shifting patterns of migration and mobility in the period of transition from colonial rule to independence. The Second World War appears to have had a decisive effect on patterns of migration, first of all because of the unsettling effects of mobilisation and imprisonment, but also because of repercussions on longer-term patterns of mobility. In the period between the 1920s and 1960s, four major shifts can be discerned: the transformation of patterns of labour-migration; the migration crises caused by war and revolution; the exodus of ethnic minorities; and urbanization. For the first and last of these changes, the war was not the sole cause, but it was a catalyst. It becomes clear that the vicissitudes of the Dutch population cannot be separated from those of other communities in Indonesian society. This study of mobility in and out of Indonesia demonstrates the need to analyse the Second World War from a regional and global perspective.

The ideal of the citizen-soldier around which the Dutch patriots of the 1780s rallied, has been well documented in the literature. However, little has been written on what happened to these ideals, once their proponents gained power in 1795 with the blessing of revolutionary France. This article describes how the arming of the citizenry in this newly named Batavian Republic, became a source of serious dissension. Four positions are distinguished in this debate, differing on questions such as whether the new citizens’ army should have a centralised or federal structure; if service had to be compulsory; and what political purposes it should serve. It is argued that a certain nationalisation of military service slowly appeared in this period, but that this was halted by the fear of being drawn into a large-scale war as a result of the alliance with France.

While the Dutch government tried to maintain neutrality during World War I, the belligerent nations closely watched the Netherlands and its public opinion. At the same time, the French, English, and German authorities used propaganda to influence Dutch public opinion. The famous documentary film The Battle of the Somme (1916) is a good example. Its critical reception in the Netherlands has been studied before, but its challenge to the cause of neutrality has escaped close attention. Not only did Dutch ministers, mayors, film distributors, and cinema owners get involved, but so did the intelligence services and propaganda departments of the warring countries. This article shows that at least three films about the battle of the Somme were shown in Dutch cinemas – French, English, and German – and that all of them were part of a struggle to secure the public’s favour.

This article offers a historiographic review of Belgian and Dutch nationhood during the long nineteenth century. It is argued that history from below is weakly represented. In the late 1980s the subjectivist turn was adopted in research on Belgian and Dutch nationalism, although the sources of inspiration differed (Hroch and A.D. Smith in the former, Gellner and Koselleck in the latter). Initially, a top-down vision predominated in which nation-building destroyed other identities. In the early 1990s this theoretical paradigm was challenged in the Netherlands. Research into nationhood from below emerged as case-centred micro-history on the local level, based on the everyday experience of individuals. Belgian historiography only followed a decade later due to its strong institutional focus. In the early 2000s both countries saw the rise of a history from below based on sources produced by ordinary people. Nevertheless, a one-sided top-down perspective often remains the subtext in current research.

This article deals with België, een parcours van herinnering, a twovolume book, edited by four historians and one literature historian. It is a Belgian attempt to write the history of a nation through its lieux de mémoire. Following in Pierre Nora’s footsteps, the idea behind this book is that traditional history cannot but fail when attempting to write national history, because the nation has undergone tremendous changes. In this article the concept of lieux de mémoire as it is used in België, een parcours van herinnering is studied in the context of debates concerning history and heritage. It is usually stated that history and heritage are opposites, because history has scientific purposes and heritage has nostalgic and political ones. On the one hand, België, een parcours van herinnering is written by professional historians and the sites of memory in question are studied according to scientific methods. On the other hand, sites of memory are pieces of heritage, and the writing of history along the lines of those sites always involves debates about national identity. In this article it is argued that België, een parcours van herinnering shows not only that heritage and history are intertwined, but also that writing lieux de mémoire-history transcends such a presumed opposition.