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A detailed account of the elections to the Dutch Parliament held on 22nd November 2006 following the fall of the government on 30th June 2006 is provided.

How did the states of Europe establish colonies throughout the world starting in the 1500s? It is one of the most important questions of global history, but our attempts to […]

Why does the leading economic power of its time lose its dominance? Competing theories are tested through a comparison of four historical cases--the Florentine city-state, the Spanish empire, and the Dutch and British nation-states. Institutional context determined social actors' capacities to apply their polities' human and material resources to foreign economic competition. Specifically, the dominant elites in each polity established the social relations and institutions that protected them from domestic challenges from rival elites and classes. But these relations and institutions had the effect of limiting elites' capacities to adapt to foreign economic rivals: Elites acting locally determined their capacities to act globally.

WRITING ABOUT THE UPCOMING international congress of the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR), to be held in Vienna from September 16-23, 1930, Dutch writer, educator, and freethinker H. G. [...]

Schulkerks, or secret churches, were formed when Calvinism became the official state religion of Netherlands in the 17th century. Schulkerks were sometimes rather large churches built into private homes and other buildings. Government officials knew these churches, built by Catholics, Lutherans, Mennonites and other religious groups existed, but they were tolerated because as private churches, they did not have public recognition and did not interfere with the state religion.

The conversion of bogs into arable land in the Netherlands has had premier importance since the Middle Ages. The bogs were compacted to make farmland, but then the elevation lowered, causing more flooding; and dams were built to keep water out, and windmills were used to pump out the water. Regional governance was needed to make these projects possible.

The Dutch Rijkswaterstaat has had the responsibility of controlling water resources in the Netherlands since 1798. The history of this agency is broken up into three distinct time periods that reflect changing political atmospheres.

There are roughly two ways to write the history of one's discipline: 'insider' accounts, written from within the discipline's framework of shared assumptions, and 'outsider' accounts, written from a broader and generally less self-celebratory perspective--one that considers the social and ideological alliances that helped shape the discipline but were more or less discarded at a later stage. This article traces the emergence of Dutch Folklore Studies around 1900 and describes how isolated fishing communities in the Netherlands raised the curiosity of folklorists and craniometrists and almost simultaneously attracted painters and travelers. This common curiosity resulted in numerous forms of representation, including sociographic reports, studies by physical anthropologists, travel accounts, and paintings. The records about Marken from the decades around 1900 illustrate how the popular and scholarly imaginations implicated one another and offer a valuable understanding of the discourses informing those perceptions. In particular, Roodenburg discusses how ideas about primitivity, race, and allochrony influenced and are reflected in these representations of Marken and its inhabitants., IN THE LAST decades of the nineteenth century a colorful group of painters, travelers, and scholars became fascinated with the island of Marken, a small fishing community some ten miles [...]

This article examines historical research on the lives of artisans living and working in the Netherlands. The author reviews works from Sandra Bos, Joost van Genabeek, Bibi Panhuysen, and Harald Deceulaer.

The seizure of the Sta. Catarina took place off the east coast of Singapore in 1603 and was popularised by the Dutch lawyer and humanist Hugo Grotius. Based on Dutch and Portuguese sources, the article revisits the incident to critique Grotius' account and provide a snapshot of Portuguese trade and diplomacy in Asia at the time., Introduction When the prize from the [Sta. Catarina] was recently put up for sale, who did not marvel at the wealth revealed? Who was not struck with amazement? Who did [...]

This article examines the role of the Netherlands in World War II during the occupation of the German Nazis, as well as their actions afterwards. The author maintains the Dutch played a crucial part in the extermination of the Jews, and have done little since to address their actions.

The idea of three tribal nations in the Netherlands, involving Saxons, Frisians and Franks, faded away after 1945, and it was little help in defining external borders, while it could foster internal divisions.

Economic modeling of Dutch labor union membership between 1910 and 1990 shows a structural break following World War II. No single relationship explains this entire period, so analysis depends on examining two sub-periods. Before the war, union membership was stimulated by price and wage increases and strikes. Following the war, union activity depended on real-wage developments and left-wing political parties.

The Dutch East India Company, for the 17th and 18th centuries, based its profitability on transporting diverse goods from Asia in exchange for precious metals. This exchange was increased by European Company employees raising resources through bills of exchange that were subsequently redeemed in Europe. Anglo-Dutch banking firms were the chief intermediaries in such transactions during the second half of the 18th century.

The Netherlands characterized its culture during the 18th century as derived from a prosperous urban community. Externally, the republic set up a trading empire that reached to Asia. Internally, beggars and criminals were remanded to prison-workhouses, although prostitutes were especially common in Amsterdam. Violent crime was not common, but knife-fighting was frequent between non-aristocratic men until 1720.

The ability of the Netherlands to remain neutral throughout the duration of World War I was determined by economic, political and strategic issues. The critical issue was whether German trade coming through the Netherlands should be restricted. There was tremendous pressure, under threat of invasion, from Germany on one side, and from Britain, under threat of blockade, on the other. Dutch business interests were willing to risk temporary sanctions from the allies to maintain long-term trade relations with Germany.

A Marxist analysis of Holland as a model nation of 17th-century capitalism is presented. Although Marx and Engels did mention the rise and fall of Dutch merchant capitalism in their writings, they only provided a cursory look at the significance of the Dutch Revolt against Spain. The debate on the nature of the Dutch Revolt among Marxist historians is discussed.

When asked in May 1995, precisely fifty years after the end of World War II in Europe, who the Nazis had deported to the concentration camps, 191 of 193 Belgian [...]

Did Roman law represent a kind of moral menace in premodern Europe, encouraging commercialism, greed, and exploitativeness, and fostering a lifeless "rationalism"? In one version or another, this idea has [...], One of the classic arguments in European legal history is the claim that the spread of Roman law broke down traditional European morality and paved the way for the rise of modern commercial society. This claim, which influenced some of the founders of classical sociology, and which was embraced by both Marxists and Nazis, is almost universally rejected by professional legal historians. Professor Whitman defends this claim on the basis of evidence from the Dutch commercial revolution of the early seventeenth century. Seventeenth-century Holland, generally regarded as the first modern commercial society, has been neglected by legal historians. Yet Dutch sources hold revealing evidence for the impact of Roman law on the making of a new commercial morality. Elsewhere in Christian Europe, merchants faced intimidating just-price restrictions. The Dutch turned to a more liberal Roman-law regime. Other parts of Christian Europe permitted a Roman-law liquidation procedure only after brutal shaming ceremonies. The Dutch permitted the Roman-law procedure without any such shame sanctions. In both cases, Roman law provided the moral authority of ancient Rome to merchants who wished to escape Christian restrictions on commercial behavior Such neglected issues of moral authority are inescapably important for explaining the rise and spread of commercial society.

Patrimonial states and their chartered East India companies propelled the first wave of European colonialism in Asia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The metropolitan principals of these organizations faced special problems in monitoring and controlling their own colonial agents. Focusing primarily on the Dutch United East Indies Company and secondarily on its English counterpart, I argue that the network structure of each organization affected the degree to which relationships between patrimonial principals and their agents could serve as a disciplinary device. Dutch decline was imminent when alternative opportunities for private gain, available via the ascending English East India Company, allowed Dutch colonial servants to evade their own patrimonial chain and encouraged its organizational breakdown. Features of network structure determined whether colonial agents saw better alternatives to the official patrimonial hierarchy, when they could act on them, and whether principals could respond.

The industrial espionage in the Dutch Republic is a reflection of the country's industrial policy and ideological changes, rather than a concern for technological leadership of Europe. The technological history of the Republic shows that the Republic did not lag behind in technological innovations until the middle of the eighteenth century. The comparative absence of industrial intelligence before the middle of the eighteenth century and a spurt after this relate to the policies of openness and secrecy of technological advances.

The extreme, emotional reaction of the Netherlands government to the Soviet intervention in Hungary on Nov 4, 1956, was motivated more by political opportunism and self-interest than concern for the plight of the Hungarian people. Dutch policy on the Hungarian revolution was influenced by its need to gather support for the Anglo-French Suez policy and by its opposition to neutral Afro-Asian countries with anti-western attitudes. The vehement reaction of Dutch anti-communist groups, despite its negligible effect on the Hungarian revolution and world opinion, helped bring national unity and consensus which the Dutch politicians exploited.

Stage boundaries in Netherlands of the 15th to 17th century used people to indicate dramatic framing in plays performed by rhetoricians. Analysis of texts and artwork shows persons on the boundaries of stages stage who might not be actors. Non-acting persons on boundaries served to frame the story of the play while performing helpful functions, and it might not have mattered if the audience saw them.

The Netherlands established its power in the 16th century through its patrimonial administrative structure and the economic growth encouraged by the king of Habsburg. Geographic location, technological innovations and the government's control of production supplemented the politico-economic development. The merchants' influence on government policy-making increased. However, Dutch influence decreased in the 17th century with an increase in problems between the patrimonial state, the corporate sector and the competitors.

The comparative study of colonial slavery and abolition movements reveals that the Dutch were the last European power to legislative emancipation. The traditionally assumed relationship between capitalist development of 'free-labor' markets and antislavery would indicate that Holland should have been at the forefront of abolition. The fact that slave trading remained legal well past mercantile and industrial development indicates that abolitionism may be more socially determined than previously acknowledged.

The Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage enjoyed a healthy budget which allowed for relatively extravagant food purchases in the years between 1639 and 1812. Food allocations accounted for an average of 31% of the orphanage's total budget and allowed it to maintain the high quality and quantity of its caloric intake despite fluctuations in food prices or supply. Dairy and meat products, instead of grain based meals, comprised an integral part of the diet at the orphanage. Such abundance coincides with a period of historic wealth in Holland.

A survivor of the Second World War recollects his past during the time of Nazi torture. The unpleasant memories narrated were revived in him after he visited the Memorial Hall (Ohel Yizkar) in Jerusalem and saw a documentary film about the annihilation of European Jews.

Hugh O'Neill's rebellion against the Tudor rule of Ireland as a dependent state that became known as the Nine Years War lasted from 1594 to 1603 and bears similarities to the Dutch rebellion against the Habsburgs. Both groups of rebels were resisting externally imposed reforms that offended their conservative viewpoint and both attempted to incorporate newly recognized nationalistic and religious tendencies in their constituents. The differences were more significant: O'Neill's low popularity, the inability of the Irish to broaden the conflict on ethnic grounds and O'Neill eventual reliance on main force rather than diplomacy.

This article analyzes the nature of Dutch noble patronage of radical reformers in the 1530s and 1540s. At a time when they were experiencing a decline in political status, several Dutch nobles, especially noblewomen, found a measure of self-esteem and an outlet for their practice of aristocratic virtue in acting as patrons of Anabaptist groups. In particular, it is evident that the elitist writings of the spiritualistic Anabaptist David Joris appealed to aristocratic sensibilities of social superiority. On the whole, noble involvement in the radical reformation of the 1530s and 1540s can be viewed as a precursor to their larger scale support of Calvinists in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years War.

The advent of technological changes and industrialization in the Netherlands in the later 19th-century met little organized resistance because of the lack of opposition by labor groups. These four groups, the Liberals, the Catholics, the Protestants and the Socialists, competed for the public's support to the exclusion of issues such as the automation of grain handling in Rotterdam harbor. Opposition to technological change was subsumed into the struggle for political ascendency.

Scholarship on Anglo-Dutch relations in the 17th century has traditionally stressed the cooperation between the royal houses of Orange and Stuart in which the interests of the Dutch state became subordinate to William II's dynastic ambitions. Spurred by intermarriage with the Stuarts, William II supported English royalists against the Parliamentary revolt, but the province of Holland checked this and sought to support the other side. This view, however, fails to take into account factional subtleties which complicated motives and alliances in each country.

Without the economic muscle of the Netherlands' largest city, William III would never have been able to stage Britain's 'Glorious Revolution' or urge European war against Louis XIM. But his [...]

The Dutch still suffer the psychological aftereffects of the war. Modern Dutch literature is filled with the experiences of war victims. Works by Jeroen Brouwers, Willem Frederik Hermans, F.B. Hotz and others are discussed.