This dissertation focuses on the workings of popular national agency in late nineteenth-century Amsterdam and the question in what ways and to what extent ‘ordinary’ citizens constructed and... Show moreThis dissertation focuses on the workings of popular national agency in late nineteenth-century Amsterdam and the question in what ways and to what extent ‘ordinary’ citizens constructed and experienced ‘the Netherlands’ through their urban surroundings. It steers away from a top-down perspective and considers the lower and middle social classes as actual actors in the process of democratising the nation. The argument of the book is centred around five case studies: the popular experience of public monuments and statues; the singing of the national anthem; popular Orangism; the public response to the Boer Wars; and the commercialisation of the nation in an urban context. Show less
