Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 124, Issue 1, 2011

During the Dutch reign in Brazil (1624/30-54) the country was inhabited by a heterogeneous population, which included Europeans of different religions and origins, but also African slaves and native Indians. Manoel de Moraes was a product of this ethnic and social diversity. As a mixed-race Portuguese he spoke different languages and possessed a thorough knowledge of his homeland. This was a valuable asset in colonial Br Read More

Recent medical and cultural-historical research suggests that the experience of physical pain, far from being an purely bodily sensation, is powerfully mediated by personal factors and wider cultural beliefs. This article explores the meanings attached to pain during the early modern period. The first part examines three important early modern pain discourses: medical, neo-Stoical, and religious. The second part analy Read More

This article evaluates social protest in Belgium during the First World War. Even more than elsewhere in Europe, the war temporarily reversed the shift from old forms of collective action (e.g. food riots) to new ones (e.g. strikes). This reversal of long-term trends was caused by specific features of the German occupation. The capitalist national market disintegrated. The earliest and most industrialized country on the European co Read More

The First World War is considered by many historians to have produced the great cultural turn of the twentieth century. The boom in memory which occurred across Europe after the war is part of its impact. Dutch historians have argued that the Netherlands, as a neutral country, never fully experienced the far-reaching intellectual and cultural consequences of the war. This article questions this proposition by examining how Read More

This article examines how the politics of apartheid manifested itself in networks that linked South Africa with the Netherlands. It examines the transfer of narratives, images, ideas, and political practices within a transnational kinship network, as well as through a network of political activists. The film material of a Dutch documentary maker, especially the footage including his relatives from South Africa, is used to trace these Read More

During apartheid, the teaching of history was used to promote the government’s interpretation of the national past. All textbooks were based on a restricted selection of sources made by a national committee. In this way the government made sure that only the Afrikaner interpretation of history was reflected in the history handbooks. When more recent history was discussed, the apartheid system was justified and the opp Read More

Jesus praised the Good Samaritan who understood that the stranger we encounter in daily life is in fact our neighbour. For Siep Stuurman the tale of the Samaritan symbolizes the fundamental insight that humanity is a universal category transcending cultural differences. It would be perfectly legitimate, however, to interpret Luke 10:25-37 as an ethical injunction to help our neighbour even though regarding him or her as inferi Read More