On 26-28 June, 2023, Leiden University’s Institute for History will host a summer school on Socioeconomic diplomacy and global empire building, 16th-19th centuries, in collaboration with the N.W. Posthumus Institute and the Global Diplomacy Network. The summer school will bring together approximately 10-15 advanced students or young academics and a team of experts at the…

Posthumus fellow Dr Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz (University of Amsterdam) and emeritus Professor Stuart Jenks (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) are the editors of Message in a Bottle: Merchants’ letters, merchants’ marks and conflict management in 1533-34. A source edition, published this fall with Brepols. The publication is based on a batch of merchants’ letters to be delivered from Antwerp…

Posthumus fellow emeritus Professor Kees Mandemakers, professor of Large Historical Databases at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, will present his public valedictory lecture on Friday 20 January 2023, entitled ‘“You Really Got Me”. Development and Future of Historical Databases with Microdata’. The ceremony will begin at 16:00 hours promptly in the Aula, Erasmus…

Posthumus fellows Emeritus Professors Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten Zanden have published a new book with Princeton Universiyt Press, entitled Pioneers in Capitalism: The Netherlands 1000-1800. The Netherlands was one of the pioneers of capitalism in the Middle Ages, giving rise to the spectacular Dutch Golden Age while ushering in an era of unprecedented, long-term…

From the prehistorical migrations to our globalized world, humankind has always been confronted with “others”, who are spontaneously compared to “us”. First, it usually implies a fascination for differences, often – but not always followed by a discovery of commonalities. Demographic thought has been, and still is, heavily influenced by the Malthusian discourse that insisted…

Because of the rapidly approaching Christmas Holidays, the December issue of our Newsletter will appear a week earlier than usual. Do you have any news items, events, calls, or vacancies you want to share with our readers? Make sure to send in your news ultimately on 14 December 2022! E-MAIL US

On 18 january 2023, Posthumus alumnus Bas Machielsen will defend his thesis ‘The Political Elite, Self-Interest and Democratization’, in which he examines the influence of self-interest on the decision-making of political elites. Literature has already documented various ways in which actions of political elites can benefit themselves, possibly at the expense of the electorate or society….

At the Gelderse Landdag 2022, the 2022 edition of the annual meeting of Erfgoed Gelderland, the Maartens van Sevenhoven medal was awarded to Posthumus PhD Student Rozemarijn Moes for her research on the historical demography of Guelders from prehistorical times until now. The Maartens van Sevenhoven medal is awarded every second year to persons who…

This event, originally scheduled for 27 October, has now been rescheduled to 15 December 2022 Annually, the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC) organises the Maddison Lecture at the University of Groningen. This year’s lecture will be delivered by Professor William Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development…

The Organising committee of the two-day conference (Posthumus board member Professor Pepijn Brandon (VU Amsterdam/IISH), Dr Niklas Frykman, Professor Marcus Rediker (both University of Pittsburgh), and Professor and activist Nandita Sharma (University of Hawai‘i at Manoa)) invite paper proposals. Papers can cover any period between roughly 1500 and the present, any group of people challenging…