Natural history collections provide invaluable sources for researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds, aspiring to study the geographical distribution of flora and fauna across the globe as well as other evolutionary processes.

Between 1600 and 1800 countless manuals appeared on the subject: the improvised bass part on the harpsichord, pianoforte or organ. Musician and researcher Kathryn Cok unravels the secrets of the Dutch basso continuo accompaniment for modern-day musicians.

Promotores: Prof.dr. P.M. Brakefield, Prof.dr. B.J. Zwaan (Wageningen Universiteit)

Archives were a common target during the Second World War, and hundreds suffered damages. Among these archival losses, the losses to medieval manuscript collections stand out.

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a synthetic work, authored by an international team of researchers, covering twenty national cultures and 250 years. It goes beyond the conventional nation-centered narratives and presents a novel vision especially sensitive to the cross-cultural…

In Reframing the Diplomat Albertine Bloemendal offers a unique window onto the unofficial dimension of Cold War transatlantic relations by analyzing the diplomatic role of the Dutch Atlanticist Ernst van der Beugel as a government official and as a private diplomat.

This PhD research sets out to unravel and explain the socio-structural and cultural impacts of oil-industrialization on the local Bakhtiari community in general and the industrial laborers it provided in specific.

The acquisition and administration of the possessions of the “Teutonic House” in Utrecht, and its dependencies, in the Middle Ages until c.1600.

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

Colonialism Inside Out: Everyday Experience and Plural Practice in Dutch Institutions in Sri Lanka (c. 1700-1800)

The second major collection of papers from the Bridging the Unbridgeable project.

Maps play a crucial role in our view of the past, yet few historians are sufficiently skilled in cartography to genuinely integrate maps into their research. This project breaks down the long-standing barriers between history and cartography by inviting emerging scholars (ResMA) to reflect on maps as…

On 24 October 2023 Jurre Knoest successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

In the early modern period women played a prominent role in crime. At times they even made up half of all defendants. Female criminality was a typically urban phenomenon. Why do we find so many women before the Dutch criminal courts?

De Nederlandse geschiedenis is nauw verbonden met die van de wereld als geheel. Door migratie, handel en kennisuitwisseling beïnvloedden mensen elkaar over grotere afstanden en intensiever dan we lang dachten. Wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland toonde in meer dan honderd verhalen hoe internationaal de…

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent.

On 8 February Jan Michiel Otto, professor of Law and Governance in Developing Countries, delivered the dies lecture entitled: 'Unity in diversity. The topicality of professor C. van Vollenhoven'. Otto emphasized - following Van Vollenhoven - the importance of scope and respect for the public sphere…

World History — a Genealogy charts the history of the discipline through twenty-five in-depth conversations with historians whose work has shaped the field of world history in fundamental ways.

Migration is an important topic of academic, public and political debate. Migration research generates a wealth of articles. The Journal of Migration History (JMH) is the first to specialize in the field. Articles on migration history either appear in journals that specialize on current issues, or in…

The main aim of this project is to reveal and unravel the invisible histories of the UN, transcending the dominant Western perspective to recover the historical agency of Global South actors. The research will investigate how the UN has both facilitated and limited their role in shaping global order…

This book published by Oxford University Press discusses religion and trade in world history.

This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Pera Museum in Istanbul. It contains seven articles on the global panoramic visual history from the early modern to modern times and Istanbul's place within this history.

This book provides an exploration into the historical transformations of women's interactions with state police in the Western world from 1800 to 1950.

Why does the history of dogmatism deserve our attention? This open access book analyses uses of the term, following dogmatism from Victorian Britain to Cold War America, examining why it came to be regarded as a vice, and how understandings of its meaning have evolved.

What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

Visiting Researchers at the Leiden University Institute for History

This project investigates the rich linguistic history of the crucial language groups in East Africa and includes a search for words that indicate earlier lost languages. These outcomes, combined with recent archaeological and genetic research, will contribute to a new understanding of East Africa’s…

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

This study aims to provide a long time perspective of human landscape manipulation. Studying the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems is of great importance to establish the character of past 'natural' landscapes and to enhance the management of current ones.

This study offers a new approach to the history of sites, archaeology, and heritage formation in Asia, at both the local and the trans-regional levels.

It recently emerged that a Swiss firm secretly owned by the CIA and the West German intelligence service BND had been selling manipulated coding equipment to numerous governments, including allies, to spy on them through a Swiss cover firm for years.

Political scientists Tom Louwerse, Simon Otjes & Cynthia van Vonno introduce the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset, a record of parliamentary (voting) behaviour in the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber, House of Representatives) since 1945.

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

In a modernist interpretation of migration controls, nation states play a major role. This book challenges this interpretation by showing that comprehensive migration checks and permanent border controls appeared much earlier, in early modern dynastic states and empires, and predated nation states by…

How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

Show People offers a comprehensive history of the film star from Mary Pickford to Andy Serkis, traversing more than one hundred years and drawing on examples from America, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

In this paper, Kantorowicz aims to track the persistent effect of former partitioning borders on property tax rates in Poland.

This work analyzes ritual practices and knowledge related to the Mesoamerican calendar with the aim of contributing to the understanding of the use and conceptualization of this calendar system in the contemporary K’iche’ community of Momostenango, in the Highlands of Guatemala.