We are interested in a longue durée and comparative approach to the history of various world regions. Questions we ask include: How do slave labour and other types of forced labour contribute to economic development? How do patterns of migration and circulation of ideas influence globalization? What can the history of the social sciences explain about how we view the world? How do people cope with climate change and other environmental changes?
The Global History group comprises of three research groups: Global Economic and Social History, Water and Environmental History and Global History from an Anthropological Perspective.
Chair of Global Economic and Social History
The staff members of the chair group Global Economic and Social History (GESH) do research on the history of worldwide flows of goods, people and ideas. They explicitly do so from a global perspective, and formulate alternatives for traditional Eurocentric interpretations of history. The group collaborates closely with the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, that specializes in the history of labour, capitalism and social movements. We ask questions like: what is the long-term influence of globalization on social inequality? How is capitalist development connected to colonialism, slavery and other large-scale forms of coercion, and what is the role of divisions along lines of gender, race and social class? What are the effects of large-scale migration on labour relations, transfers of knowledge and social movements? How do economic changes affect social, political and cultural processes, including the formation of heritage and collective memory?
Our focus areas
- Global history from a non-European perspective
- Globalisation, colonialism and capitalism
- Social history of Latin America and Sub-Sahara Africa
- Commodity Frontiers, extractivism and ecology
- Social inequality and social movements
- Structural inequalities (gender, race, social class)
- (Coerced) labour and migration
Teaching
We teach the following courses: BA History and International studies (HIS): World History 500-1800 and 1800-present; Latin America in modern history; Sub-Sahara Africa and the world; History and Social sciences; Transatlantic connections; International Relations from below; Research Seminar Global Economic and Social History 1500-present; BA Geschiedenis: Kapitalisme en ongelijkheid; Geschiedenis en sociale wetenschappen; MA/RMA Global History: Slavery, abolition and compensation; From Source to Public; Challenging capitalist modernity; Team research in action. In addition, we offer several tutorials and supervision of theses and internships.
Research projects
- Land Grabbing Empire: State Strategies and Large Scale Land Transfers in Dutch Expansion (16th-18th century)
- Societal support for energy transitions: the anti-nuclear power movement as historical case study
- Representations of race in Dutch modernity
- Slavery insured: The Amsterdamse Assurantie Compagnie 1771
- The tensions of freedom. Tran Duc Thao's anticolonial thought, activism and influence in post-WWII France
Teaching Staff
Pepijn Brandon, Professor of Global Economic and Social History
Ulbe Bosma, Professor by special appointment of International and Comparative Social History and senior researcher IISH
Lucas Poy, Assistant Professor in Global Economic and Social History, with a focus on Latin America
Wesley Mwatwara, Assistant Professor of Global Economic and Social History (specialisation Sub-Sahara Africa)
Patricia Schor, postdoctoral researcher
Karel Davids, Emeritus full professor of Economic and Social History
PhD students
| Name | Research Project |
| Dominique Ankoné | The tensions of freedom. Tran Duc Thao's anticolonial thought, activism and influence in post-WWII France |
| Marten Buschman | Henri van Kol, 1852-1925 |
| Tamira Combrink | Slaves, commodities and logistics |
| Alexander Geelen | Slavery and mobility in the Dutch early modern overseas empire |
| Tzu-Yi (Dylan) Hsu | Chinese capital, land ownership and labour migration in the early VOC empire |
| Gerrie Lierens | Actoren en discrepanties op de Nederlandse arbeidsmarkt na 1945 |
| Sam Miske | Land Grabbing in Southeast Asia: Company, Conquest, and Indigenous Power in the Banda Islands and West-Java, 17th Century |
| Ruud Paesie | Het Korendragersgilde in Amsterdam, ca. 1550- 1900 |
| Zawdie Sandvliet | Land Grabbing in the Dutch Atlantic: Land, Indigenous rights and African slavery in New Netherland and Suriname |
| Eva Seuntjens | Slavery insured: The Amsterdamse Assurantie Compagnie 1771 |
| Hanna te Velde | Colonial Girl Power |
| Pauline Wittebol | Amsterdamse handelsnetwerken en Amerika in de 18de eeuw |
Institutional embedding
GESH researchers are members of these institutes:
- CLUE+ Research Institute, cluster Globalization, Capitalism, Colonialism
- International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam (IISG)
- National Research School N.W.Posthumusinstituut: network Economy and Society of the Pre-Industrial Low Countries in Comparative Perspective
- Stevin Centre for History of Science and Humanities
- Commodity Frontiers Initiative
- International Association of Labour History Institutions
- RED Latinoamericana de Trabajo y Trabajadores
- Centro de Estudios Historicos de los Trabajadores y las Izquierdas
Chair of Water and Environmental History
This research group approaches the relationship between humans, landscape and animals from an ecological, social-economic and political perspective. In this way we hope to contribute to a more sustainable world. Questions we ask include: how do people cope with climate change and other ecological changes? What are the historical roots of the globalization of more sustainable behaviour and politics? How is nature an agency in historical development?
Our focus areas
- History of water institutions and water governance
- Drinking water, drought and climate change
- Natural disasters, water security and floods
- Animal-human relations
Teaching
We coordinate the minor European urban and cultural history and the RMA Global history track, and teach the following courses, in cooperation with other Chair groups: BA History and International studies: World History 500-1800; Water and Enviromental History; BA Geschiedenis: Amsterdam: A Historical Introduction; MA/RMA Global History: History of Natural Disasters; Environmental Humanities. Also we offer tutorials on environmental history and advise on theses and internships.
Research projects
- Coping with drought – An environmental history of drinking water shortages and climate adaptation in the Netherlands, 1550-1850.
- In search of the poldermodel – History of the water boards
- History of the NAP
Teaching Staff
Petra van Dam, regular and sponsored professor of Water and Environmental History
Milja van Tielhof, Postdoc and Senior-researcher at the Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis
PhD students
| Name | Research Project |
| Berco Hoegen | History of the soft wood plantations (coppicing practices) in the river area |
| Dániel Moerman | ‘When the Well Runs Dry’: Drinking Water and Climate Adaptation in the Eastern Netherlands, 1600-1850 |
Institutional embedding
WEH researchers are members of these institutes:
- Environmental Humanities Center
- CLUE+ Research Institute,, cluster Environmental and Health Humanities
- National Research School N.W.Posthumusinstituut: netwerk Societies in their environment: regional analysis of urban and rural developmen
- Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis
Chair of Global History from an Anthropological Perspective
Global History from an Anthropological Perspective is a research group that combines methodological and conceptual insights from history and anthropology to come to a better understanding of societies’ present and past. Research and teaching focuses on themes such as migration, ethnicity, nationalism and cosmopolitanism; state formation and the construction of sovereignty and identity; and the social and political dimensions within which history and memory exist. Our research encompasses the modern and contemporary history of Europe, Africa, and Asia and the Caribbean.
Teaching
Our staff members teach bachelor's courses on Global History; Empires and States in Globalising World, 1500-present; Global Migration History; International Relations from Below; and International Organisations. They also offer master's tutorials on the history and anthropology of mobility and on modern China. Our staff members coordinate the minor in Migration Studies. We provide thesis supervision for bachelor’s and master’s students wishing to write about the history and anthropology of migration, mobility, state and identity formation, and transnationalism based on archival research, "ego documents" and life history research, material culture studies and anthropological methods and techniques.
Research projects
- Socioeconomic background of state formation in early modern Europe
- Relationships between French entrepreneurs and Moroccan museums
- Lifestyle migration from China
- Moroccan and Algerian migrant activism in Europe
- The Study of Dutch Identity Formation in Global Perspective
Teaching Staff
Pál Nyíri, Professor of Global History from an Anthropological Perspective
Norah Karrouche, Assistant professor
Younes Saramifar, Assistant Professor in Inhumanities, with a focus on the history and anthropology of Political Violence
Marjolein ‘t Hart Emeritus professor of the History of State Formation in Global Perspective
Zhu Yidan, visiting research fellow, Project about non-elite intellectuals in Republican China.
Institutional embedding
Our staff members also hold appointments at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Huygens Institute of the History of the Netherlands (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). Moreover, they are members of research centres and schools including: