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The De Peyster Genealogy
Waldron Phoenix Belknap Jr.
Harvard University Press

From the Preface:

The de Peysters were an armigerous family of Ghent, and can be traced as landowners of some importance in that neighborhood as far back as the thirteenth century. By custom they were associated with various of the mediaeval guilds of Ghent, especially the Goldsmiths' Guild, serving frequently as Chief-Dean and Syndic of more than one. Many, including Johannes de Peyster's grandfather, Josse de Peyster (1554- ?) of Ghent, were described as goldsmith, probably in the old meaning of banker. Their conversion to Protestantism caused the family to take refuge in Holland, while some established themselves in London and in Rouen.

The interest of the author, Waldron Phoenix Belknap, Jr., in his Dutch and Colonial ancestors prompted him to write this book. His painstaking research has given us a record of the de Peyster family up to the present, and brought to light many interesting and little-known facts about the family. Attention is called to the variation in the spelling of some names, in many instances of the same person, but the spelling follows the records as found.

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Death in the Tiergarten
Murder and Criminal Justice in the Kaiser’s Berlin
Benjamin Carter Hett
Harvard University Press, 2004

From Alexanderplatz, the bustling Berlin square ringed by bleak slums, to Moabit, site of the city's most feared prison, Death in the Tiergarten illuminates the culture of criminal justice in late imperial Germany. In vivid prose, Benjamin Hett examines daily movement through the Berlin criminal courts and the lawyers, judges, jurors, thieves, pimps, and murderers who inhabited this world.

Drawing on previously untapped sources, including court records, pamphlet literature, and pulp novels, Hett examines how the law reflected the broader urban culture and politics of a rapidly changing city. In this book, German criminal law looks very different from conventional narratives of a rigid, static system with authoritarian continuities traceable from Bismarck to Hitler. From the murder trial of Anna and Hermann Heinze in 1891 to the surprising treatment of the notorious Captain of Koepenick in 1906, Hett illuminates a transformation in the criminal justice system that unleashed a culture war fought over issues of permissiveness versus discipline, the boundaries of public discussion of crime and sexuality, and the role of gender in the courts.

Trained in both the law and history, Hett offers a uniquely valuable perspective on the dynamic intersections of law and society, and presents an impressive new view of early twentieth-century German history.

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The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of His Brother Duke Robert Guisc
Kenneth Baxter Wolf
University of Michigan Press, 2005

Geoffrey Malaterra's Deeds of Count Roger is the most important extant account of the Norman conquest of Muslim Silicy (1061-91). This volume includes a translation of the Latin original as well as an introduction, notes, and maps.

The Deeds of Count Roger fills a gap in the primary literature pertaining to the earliest phase of Latin Christian expansion at the expense of Islam, since the Norman conquests in Sicily were more or less contemporary with the First Crusade and the beginnings of the Spanish Reconquista. The account also illustrates the complexity of medieval historical writing, with Malaterra on the one hand praising the Normans for their military achievements and on the other subtly criticising the "lust for domination" that inspired them.

Kenneth Baxter Wolf is Professor of History at Pomona College.

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Defining Germany
The 1848 Frankfurt Parliamentarians and National Identity
Brian E. Vick
Harvard University Press, 2002

In a unique blend of political, intellectual, and cultural history, Brian Vick explores the world of German nationalism during the first half of the nineteenth century. Vick first presents an original investigation of German conceptions of nationhood in these decades before moving on to analyze the efforts of deputies at the Frankfurt Constituent National Assembly to construct a German national state based on the ethnically diverse German Confederation. He examines debates over fundamental issues that included citizenship qualifications, minority linguistic rights, Jewish emancipation, and territorial disputes, and offers valuable insights into nineteenth-century liberal opinion on the Jewish Question, language policy, and ideas of race.

Contrary to the often invoked dichotomy between cultural and political types of nationalism, in which the German case is usually seen as prototypical of the xenophobic, exclusionary cultural form, this study reveals how German nationalists at Frankfurt interwove cultural and political strands of the national ideal so finely as to sanction equal citizenship status in the proposed state for both the German-Jewish minority and the non-German-speaking nationalities within its boundaries. Yet deputies also contentiously defined Germany's borders so as to incorporate the latter, often unwilling groups, thereby hoping to dominate them both culturally and politically. Conflict was thus as much a part of this "culture of nationhood" as inclusion.

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Dickens's London
Peter Clark
Haus Publishing, 2012
Marking the 150th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s death, Dickens’s London leads us in the footsteps of the author through this beloved city. Few novelists have written so intimately about a place as Dickens wrote about London, and, from a young age, his near-photographic memory rendered his experiences there both significant and in constant focus. Virginia Woolf maintained that “we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens,” as he produces “characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks.” The most enduring “character” Dickens was drawn back to throughout his novels was London itself, in all its aspects, from the coaching inns of his early years to the taverns and watermen of the Thames. These were the constant cityscapes of his life and work.

In five walks through central London, Peter Clark explores “The First Suburbs”—Camden Town, Chelsea, Greenwich, Hampstead, Highgate and Limehouse—as they feature in Dickens’s writing and illuminates the settings of Dickens’s life and his greatest works of journalism and fiction. Describing these storied spaces of today’s central London in intimate detail, Clark invites us to experience the city as it was known to Dickens and his characters. These walks take us through the locations and buildings that he interacted with and wrote about, creating an imaginative reconstruction of the Dickensian world that has been lost to time.
 
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The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists
Edited by Bernard Lightman
University of Chicago Press, 2004
Containing more than 1,200 new entries on both major and minor figures of British science, this four-volume dictionary examines how the theories and practices of scientists were shaped by Victorian beliefs about religion, gender, imperialism, and politics, presenting a rich panorama of the development of science in the nineteenth century.

While the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists covers those working in traditional scientific areas such as physics, astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, and biology, it also acknowledges those working in the human sciences such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and medicine. In addition, areas often overlooked by historians of science—such as phrenology, mesmerism, spiritualism, scientific illustration, scientific journalism and publishing, instrument making, and government policy—are included here, as are the important roles of neglected "amateurs," such as women and members of the working class. By including those who worked in nontraditional areas and by considering the social and cultural context in which they lived, the dictionary reflects a richer picture of nineteenth-century science than has ever been seen before.
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Discord and Consensus in the Low Countries, 1700-2000
Edited by Jane Fenoulhet, Gerdi Quist, and Ulrich Tiedau
University College London, 2016
All countries, regions and institutions are ultimately built on a degree of consensus, on a collective commitment to a concept, belief or value system. This consensus is continuously rephrased and reinvented through a narrative of cohesion and challenged by expressions of discontent and discord. The history of the Low Countries is characterised by both a striving for consensus and eruptions of discord, both internally and from external challenges. This interdisciplinary volume explores consensus and discord in a Low Countries context along broad cultural, linguistic and historical lines. Disciplines represented include early-modern and contemporary history; art history; film; literature; and translation scholars from both the Low Countries and beyond.
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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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Divided by Faith
Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe
Benjamin J. Kaplan
Harvard University Press, 2010

As religious violence flares around the world, we are confronted with an acute dilemma: Can people coexist in peace when their basic beliefs are irreconcilable? Benjamin Kaplan responds by taking us back to early modern Europe, when the issue of religious toleration was no less pressing than it is today.

Divided by Faith begins in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, when the unity of western Christendom was shattered, and takes us on a panoramic tour of Europe's religious landscape--and its deep fault lines--over the next three centuries. Kaplan's grand canvas reveals the patterns of conflict and toleration among Christians, Jews, and Muslims across the continent, from the British Isles to Poland. It lays bare the complex realities of day-to-day interactions and calls into question the received wisdom that toleration underwent an evolutionary rise as Europe grew more "enlightened." We are given vivid examples of the improvised arrangements that made peaceful coexistence possible, and shown how common folk contributed to toleration as significantly as did intellectuals and rulers. Bloodshed was prevented not by the high ideals of tolerance and individual rights upheld today, but by the pragmatism, charity, and social ties that continued to bind people divided by faith.

Divided by Faith is both history from the bottom up and a much-needed challenge to our belief in the triumph of reason over faith. This compelling story reveals that toleration has taken many guises in the past and suggests that it may well do the same in the future.

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Dreaming in Books
The Making of the Bibliographic Imagination in the Romantic Age
Andrew Piper
University of Chicago Press, 2009

At the turn of the nineteenth century, publishing houses in London, New York, Paris, Stuttgart, and Berlin produced books in ever greater numbers. But it was not just the advent of mass printing that created the era’s “bookish” culture. According to Andrew Piper, romantic writing and romantic writers played a crucial role in adjusting readers to this increasingly international and overflowing literary environment. Learning how to use and to want books occurred through more than the technological, commercial, or legal conditions that made the growing proliferation of books possible; the making of such bibliographic fantasies was importantly a product of the symbolic operations contained within books as well.

            Examining novels, critical editions, gift books, translations, and illustrated books, as well as the communities who made them, Dreaming in Books tells a wide-ranging story of the book’s identity at the turn of the nineteenth century. In so doing, it shows how many of the most pressing modern communicative concerns are not unique to the digital age but emerged with a particular sense of urgency during the bookish upheavals of the romantic era. In revisiting the book’s rise through the prism of romantic literature, Piper aims to revise our assumptions about romanticism, the medium of the printed book, and, ultimately, the future of the book in our so-called digital age.

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A Duel of Giants
Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War
David Wetzel
University of Wisconsin Press, 2001

Combining impeccable scholarship and literary elegance, David Wetzel depicts the drama of machinations and passions that exploded in a war that forever changed the face of European history.

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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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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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The Dynamics of European Integration
Causes and Consequences of Institutional Choices
Thomas König
University of Michigan Press, 2024
In Europe’s recent history, there have been several challenges to the strength of the European Union—Brexit, COVID, financial crises, and global tensions—bringing an increased need to understand the ways that the European Union (EU) could successfully stay  together or fall apart. In examining how the European Union has changed since 1993, important puzzles have emerged, including how national government functions are transferred to the EU without reforming the EU, how increased transparency is announced while decisions are approved in informal meetings, and how the effects of the polarizing rise of Euroscepticism can be managed to still promote the formation of solidarity and trust among Europeans. To understand these puzzles, Thomas König introduces a new theory of (supra)national partyism to help explain the causes and consequences of choices made by political leaders for Europe. He uses a game-theoretical perspective to look at how conditions for leaders change through accessions of new members, shocks, and crises, and separates institutional choices into two different games played by office- and policy-seeking political leaders—the interstate summit game and the national game of party competition. The Dynamics of European Integration reveals how the reorganization of electoral systems can harness dissensus and polarization among diverse national constituencies to enable the promotion of solidarity and trust in the EU.
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