front cover of David Gorlæus (1591-1612)
David Gorlæus (1591-1612)
An Enigmatic Figure in the History of Philosophy and Science
Christoph Lüthy
Amsterdam University Press, 2013
When David Gorlæus, a prospective theology student, passed away tragically at twenty-one years old, he left behind two highly innovative manuscripts, which were published posthumously in 1620 and 1651, respectively. As his identity was unknown, seventeenth-century readers understood him both as an anti-Aristotelian thinker and a precursor of Descartes. In contrast, by the twentieth century, historians depicted him as an atomist, natural scientist, and even a chemist. David Gorlæus (1591–1612) seeks to pull together what is known of this enigmatic figure. Combining multiple historical sources, Christoph Lüthy provides a narrative of Gorlæus’s life that casts light on his exceptional body of work and places it firmly at the intersection between philosophy, the nascent natural sciences, and theology.  
“Christoph Lüthy is the first to tell the complete story of David Gorlæus and to reconstruct his image on the basis of all remaining sources. Showing in a convincing way that Gorlæus is one of the key figures in the renewal of atomistic philosophy in the seventeenth century and a major influence on many philosophers that are much better known, he leaves us with the melancholy picture of someone who died too young to become one of the heroes of the scientific revolution.”—Theo Verbeek, Utrecht University
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Death at the Opposite Ends of the Eurasian Continent
Mortality Trends in Taiwan and the Netherlands 1850-1945
Edited by Theo Engelen, John R. Shephard, and Yang Wen-shan
Amsterdam University Press, 2011
This volume examines contrasting historical demographics in Western Europe and Asia, taking the Netherlands and Taiwan as representative populations. Both countries have witnessed steady, continuous improvements in public health, disease prevention, and medical care. The contributors compare the impact of disease and mortality on the lives of individuals and families under very different cultural and social conditions. Death at the Opposite Ends of the Eurasian Continent analyzes a variety of factors, including maternal and infant mortality, as well as the accuracy of Taiwan’s censuses and death reporting.
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The Development of the Dutch Welfare State
From Workers' Insurance to Universal Entitlement
Robert H. Cox
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993

The development of the Dutch welfare state in the Netherlands started later than in other Western European countries, but once it started, it grew at a spectacular rate. The development was so rapid that it catapulted the Dutch from being welfare laggards to being welfare leaders. Cox charts the course of this growth, from the nineteenth century to the present, placing the Dutch case within the larger theoretical discussion of welfare states.

In so doing, Cox challenges the widely held assumption that welfare programs always represent the policies of the social democratic left. He demonstrates that it was not the left but the more centrist religious parties that built the Dutch welfare state in the 1960s. Even more curious is the fact that these same political forces had resisted the expansion of welfare programs throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

In many ways, the Netherlands is a crucial test case for assumptions about the welfare state. Its system is one of the largest in the world, rivaling Sweden's as one that devotes the greatest share of public spending to social welfare. How does it compare to other countries? Do present theories of welfare state development fit the Dutch case? What can we learn from the experience of a small state?

Cox makes a signal contribution in clarifying the historical record concerning a little-studied country and in advancing theoretical debate.
 

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Digital Passages
Migrant Youth 2.0: Diaspora, Gender and Youth Cultural Intersections
Koen Leurs
Amsterdam University Press, 2015
Increasingly, young people live online, with the vast majority of their social and cultural interactions conducted through means other than face-to-face conversation. How does this transition impact the ways in which young migrants understand, negotiate, and perform identity? That's the question taken up by Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0, a ground-breaking analysis of the ways that youth culture online interacts with issues of diaspora, gender, and belonging. Drawing on surveys, in-depth interviews, and ethnography, Koen Leurs builds an interdisciplinary portrait of online youth culture and the spaces it opens up for migrant youth to negotiate power relations and to promote intercultural understanding.
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Discovering the Dutch
On Culture and Society of the Netherlands
Edited by Emmeline Besamusca and Jaap Verheul
Amsterdam University Press, 2014
What are the most salient and sparking facts about the Netherlands? This updated edition of Discovering the Dutch tackles the heart of the question of Dutch identity through a number of essential themes that span the culture, history and society of the Netherlands. Running the gamut from the Randstad to the Dutch Golden Age, from William of Orange to Anne Frank, this volume uses a series of vignettes written by academic experts in their fields to address historical and contemporary topics such as immigration, tolerance, and the struggle against water, as well as issues of culture - painting, literature, architecture, and design among them. All chapters are written by academic experts in their fields who have extensive experience in explaining the many features of ŸDutchnessŒ to a foreign audience. Each chapter comes to life in vignettes that illustrate characteristic historical figures or essential aspects in Dutch culture and society from William of Orange and Anne Frank to Dutch cheese and the inevitable coffeeshop.
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The Dutch Atlantic
Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation
Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen
Pluto Press, 2011

The Dutch Atlantic interrogates the Dutch involvement in Atlantic slavery and assesses the historical consequences of this for contemporary European society.

Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen show how the slave trade and slavery intertwined economic, social and cultural elements, including nation-state formation in the Netherlands and across Europe. They explore the mobilisation of European populations in the implementation of policies that facilitated Atlantic slavery and examine how European countries created and expanded laws that perpetuated colonisation.

Addressing key themes such as the incorporation of the formerly enslaved into post-slavery states and contemporary collective efforts to forget and/or remember slavery and its legacy in the Netherlands, this is an essential text for students of European history and postcolonial studies.

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Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
J. L. Price
Reaktion Books, 2011

The seventeenth century is considered the Dutch Golden Age, a time when the Dutch were at the forefront of social change, economics, the sciences, and art. In Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, eminent historian J. L. Price goes beyond the standard descriptions of the cultural achievements of the Dutch during this time by placing these many achievements within their social context. Price’s central argument is that alongside the innovative tendencies in Dutch society and culture there were powerful conservative and reactionary forces at work—and that it was the tension between these contradictory impulses that gave the period its unique and powerful dynamic.

Dutch Culture in the Golden Age is distinctive in its broad scope, examing art, literature, religion, political ideology, theology, and scientific and intellectual trends, while also attending to the high and popular culture of the times. Price’s new interpretation of Dutch history places an emphasis on the paradox of the Dutch resistance to change as well as their general acceptance of innovation.

This comprehensive look at the Dutch Golden Age provides a fascinating new way to understand Dutch culture at the height of its historic and global influence.

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Dutch Jewry in a Cultural Maelstrom
1880-1940
Edited by Judith Frishman and Hetty Berg
Amsterdam University Press, 2008
Not only the Jews but Dutch society at large was caught up in a cultural maelstrom between 1880 and 1940. In failing to form a separate pillar in a period when various population groups were doing just that, the Jews were certainly unlike contemporary Catholics or Protestants. In fact, the Jews were not trying to gain entrance in a pre-existing culture but were involved with non-Jews in constructing a new culture. The complexity of Dutch Jewish history once again becomes evident if not new.
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The Dutch National Research Agenda in perspective
A reflection on Research and Science Policy in practice
Edited by Beatrice de Graaf, Alexander Rinnooy Kan, and Henk Molenaar
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
The Dutch National Research Agenda is a set of national priorities that are set by scientists working in conjunction with corporations, civil society organisations, and interested citizens. The agenda consolidates the questions that scientific research will be focused on in the coming year. This book covers the current status of the Dutch National Research Agenda and considers what changes and adjustments may need to be made to the process in order to keep Dutch national research at the top of the pack.
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A Dutch Republican Baroque
Theatricality, Dramatization, Moment and Event
Frans-Willem Korsten
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
In the Dutch Republic, in its Baroque forms of art, two aesthetic formal modes, theatre and drama, were dynamically related to two political concepts, event and moment. The Dutch version of the Baroque is characterised by a fascination with this world regarded as one possibility out of a plurality of potential worlds. It is this fascination that explains the coincidence in the Dutch Republic, strange at first sight, of Baroque exuberance, irregularity, paradox, and vertigo with scientific rigor, regularity, mathematical logic, and rational distance. In giving a new historical perspective on the Baroque as a specifically Dutch republican one, this study also offers a new and systematic approach towards the interactions among the notions of theatricality, dramatisation, moment, and event: concepts that are currently at the centre of philosophical and political debates but the modern articulation of which can best be considered in the explorations of history and world in the Dutch Republic."Our idea of Dutch history will never recover from reading this book. As in Korsten's conception of the Baroque, reality is bifurcated, sudden possibilities are revealed and must be faced. Instead of the staid prudence and moderation that make our image of Dutch history both comforting and numbing, Korsten presents us with the harsh and theatrical reality of a Dutch Baroque. Tyranny, slavery, execution, colonialism, censorship and obscenity constitute a lurid new world view, made up of strangely familiar remnants of the old. It bears a striking resemblance to the vivid colours of the many paintings he uses to demonstrate his argument, once the thick layers of yellowed varnish have been removed from them. It is fantastic and bizarre and leaves the reader perplexed and disturbed. " - Inger Leemans, professor of Cultural History, VU Amsterdam"This is an original and innovative book that will take the study of Dutch culture to a different level. It is an excellent example of the relevance of analysing early modern literature and the visual arts through the lens of 20th century philosophy all the while remaining historically rooted." - Hanneke Grootenboer, professor of the History of Art, University of Oxford"The publication of Korsten's book is a true event in its own right. A Dutch Republican Baroque urges us to rethink some of the more comforting myths about our 'golden' seventeenth century. The book will get on the nerves and under the skin of many of its readers: I take that as a sign of its unquestionable quality.The book combines deft readings of the works of Dutch seventeenth-century painters (Hals), poets (Huygens), playwrights (Vondel) and philosophers (Spinoza), with an astute conceptual analysis of a historical moment: the very beginnings of the man-made modern age. A Dutch Republican Baroque is a unique feat, yet everything one would expect of a truly good book: Korsten's work is provocative, wide-ranging, astute and inspiring. It debunks myths and opens up new avenues of exploration. It reads the past against the grain and in doing so sheds light on our present. The book's analyses of the early-modern Dutch fascination and discomfort with issues of slavery and torture will force us to reconsider our own investment in times of exploitation and terror." - Jürgen Pieters, professor of Literature, Ghent University
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Dynamics of Power in Dutch Integration Politics
From Accommodation to Confrontation
Justus Uitermark
Amsterdam University Press, 2012
Integration politics in the Netherlands has changed dramatically between 1990 and 2005. Whereas ethnic and religious differences were hitherto pacified through accommodation, a new and increasingly powerful current in Dutch politicsproblematizes the presence of minorities.This development represents a challenge to sociologists and political scientists: how to map and explain drastic changes?Arguing that extant approaches are better at explaining continuity than change, this book develops a distinct approach to the study of dynamic power relations to understand drastic transformations in the national debate as well as urban governance.

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