Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 127, Issue 1, 2014

Of all the rituals of ancient Rome none was more spectacular than the triumph. Scholarly attention has long been devoted to the origins and circumstances of this ritual, but lately the role of the triumph in moral discourse has also come into focus. Emperors could gain great military prestige from celebrating a triumphus, yet this prestige could (posthumously) be undermined by hostile historians and biographers who Read More

This article explores the metaphor of the father in the professional memory culture of historians. It takes as a case study Jules Michelet, who is generally considered the father of French historiography, and it traces how, why, and by whom he was elevated to this status. The role of Gabriel Monod, one of the most prominent historians at the end of the nineteenth century, was crucial in the promotion of Michelet. Ernest Lavis Read More

This article examines a number of racist and antisemitic interpretations of the philosophy of Spinoza put forward by German authors in the period 1880-1940. Particular attention is given to the views of völkisch authors such as Eugen Dühring and Houston Chamberlain, and national-socialist philosophy professors such as Hans Grunsky and Max Wundt, who worked within the newly founded discipline of nazi Judenforschung. Th Read More

In 1924 the Dutch journalist and poet Jacob Israel de Haan was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the Zionist Haganah. His death has been described as the price he paid for his struggle on behalf of the Palestine Arabs. He was labeled therefore as the Jewish (or even Dutch) Lawrence of Arabia. Indeed, in his writings De Haan pointed out the incompatibility of Zionist demands with Arab expectations. Yet he was in the first Read More

The Second World War still receives wide attention in official commemorations and political discussions often focusing on national historical experiences of war. But collective memories of World War II are also strongly influenced by a multitude of popular renditions from both home and abroad. Films and novels, comic books, and websites constitute an important but underestimated source of widespread narratives and i Read More

How has historical research on secularization evolved over the past half century? Focusing on British contributions, this article distinguishes three phases: (1) approval of ‘secularization’ as a useful analytical concept, (2) criticism of the secularization paradigm on empirical and methodological grounds, and (3) historicization of secularization as a mid-twentieth-century master narrative. Because all three phases focus on the pro Read More