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 pilgrims were more interested in how these spaces functioned socially, rather than exactly how they appeared. The actor perspective is dominant. At the centre of the description was the pilgrim himself, how he experienced urban life and how he participated in it. Venice was a place of transition. On the one hand it was considered as something familiar, with the same religion, rituals and social organisation (though on a much grander scale than even in the densely urbanized Low Countries). But at the same time it was also very different, which triggered pilgrims to compare it with their own places of origins and to represent the city and its rituals within their own frame of reference. This explains the attention for the social, political and religious role of each space described and for the movement and social interaction within each space. It was the user of the city who ‘made’ it urban. Considered from this perspective urbanity was no architectural thing, but rather a personal social map.

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 water management in the Low Countries in the pre-industrial period. It turns out that the rural population in fact intensively participated in water management, but not at all times nor in all regions or under all circumstances. The polders in the central part of the province of Holland, nowadays the Randstad and its ‘green heart’ (Groene Hart), seem to have been the best breeding grounds for management structures resembling the poldermodel. The article also includes suggested directions for future research.

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 compared with that of the laboratory. This article studies this ‘restyling’ by focussing on one particular museum: the Royal Museum of Natural History in Brussels. The Royal Museum chose to change itself from a place of collection and cataloguing into a centre of exploration and field-work. The article explores the consequences of this choice. Obviously, it affected the concrete scientific work of the museum personnel, but its impact was also wider. It influenced the development of its scientific infrastructure, led to a rearrangement of scientific networks, and resulted in a new kind of museology. Finally, it was also of importance for the reputation of the institution and the self-image of its researchers. The Royal Museum of Natural History in Brussels, therefore offers a good case-study in the interaction between theories, practices, and representations of science at the start of the twentieth century.

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 balanced accounts emphasizing the national autonomy and the international independence of the social democrats have appeared. Yet, as this article shows, the literature in this field of research is far from conclusive. For that reason, in the second part of the article some themes are specified in which further research needs to be conducted. Only this will help us to come to an answer to the crucial question whether the collapse of social democracy in post-war Eastern Europe was inevitable or not.

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 there was no room for an alternative view of the dispute. Secondly, it was unclear how and why Oltmans was involved and, no one seemed to know exactly whom he was supporting. His changeable personality undoubtedly contributed to these uncertainties. Although Oltmans should be appreciated for his efforts to end the conflict, his motivations were vague and his involvement was controversial.

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 leave more weighty and prestigious fields such as economics, foreign affairs, and defence to their male colleagues. The development of the welfare society, better educational opportunities, and new social movements such as second-wave feminism prompted a rise in the number of female politicians which challenged the idea of female incompetence. A number of prominent female political leaders came to the fore, among them two women prime ministers: Margaret Thatcher (UK, 1979-1990) and Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway, 1981, 1986-1989, 1990-1996). How competently did these two women perform? In order to answer to this question, I conducted an analysis of each of these women leaders in two important policy areas. The results undermine the above-mentioned prejudices and show that both leaders were competent in the areas under discussion.

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 parents. More so, can Juliana en Bernhard be considered an academic work, given the fact that only Fasseur was given access to the Royal Archives? Lambert Giebels argues that this collection should be made available to all historians. Coen Tamse and Carla Hoetink raise questions about the royal marriage itself and about the relationship between Juliana and Bernhard. In his reply Fasseur defends his position as an independent academic.