This comparative study investigates court politics in four kingdoms that succeeded the s outh Indian Vijayanagara empire during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and... Show moreThis comparative study investigates court politics in four kingdoms that succeeded the s outh Indian Vijayanagara empire during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnad. Building on a unique combination of unexplored Indian texts and Dutch archival records, this research offers a captivating new analysis of political culture, power relations, and dynastic developments. In great detail, this monograph provides both new facts and fresh insights that contest existing scholarship. By highlighting their competitive, fluid, and dynamic nature, it undermines the historiography viewing these courts as harmonic, hierarchic, and static. Far from being remote, ritualised figures, we find kings and Brahmins contesting with other courtiers for power. At the same time, by stressing continuities with the past, this study questions recent scholarship that perceives a fundamentally new form of Nayaka kingship. Thus, this research has important repercussions for the way we perceive both these kingdoms and their ‘medieval’ precursors. Show less
Unlike most city histories, this book focuses exclusively on the city’s connections with colonialism and slavery. Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, is one of Europe’s leading ports. Its... Show moreUnlike most city histories, this book focuses exclusively on the city’s connections with colonialism and slavery. Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, is one of Europe’s leading ports. Its maritime expansion was intrinsically linked to Dutch colonialism, including slave trading and colonial slavery in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This painful history sits uneasily with the city’s modern cosmopolitan image and its large population of ‘new Rotterdammers’ with colonial roots. The present volume provides a summary of the research that has documented this history, with chapters on the contribution of colonial trade to economic development; the city’s involvement in slavery; the role of the urban political elites; the impact on urban development and architecture; the ‘ethical impulse’; colonial art and ethnographic collections; colonial and postcolonial migration; and finally the resonance of this history in postcolonial Rotterdam. Show less
Steen, B.S. van der; Rooden, C. van; Snoep, M. 2020
Why did people decide to found political parties? How did they convince others to become members of this new organizational model? In the second half of the nineteenth century, the first party... Show moreWhy did people decide to found political parties? How did they convince others to become members of this new organizational model? In the second half of the nineteenth century, the first party organizations differed from previously existing mass political organizations, because they aimed for and had direct access to parliamentary representation. In contrast to previously existing parties that loosely organized the traditional political elite in parliament, the new mass parties were based on an extensive organizational body that included previously excluded social groups in politics. Combining political history with social science theory, this dissertation studies the ideas and practices of political activists who founded the first party organizations. The comparison of three case studies (the German Social Democratic Workers’ Party, the British National Liberal Federation and the Dutch Anti-Revolutionary Party) is based on primary sources including letters, diaries, autobiographies, minutes of meetings, brochures, newspapers and political programs in three different languages. Show less
Taking a series of popular jokes about fictitious “anti-societies” as its point of departure, this article explores the responses to the transformation of reform in the decade between 1825 and 1835... Show moreTaking a series of popular jokes about fictitious “anti-societies” as its point of departure, this article explores the responses to the transformation of reform in the decade between 1825 and 1835 and places them in the context of social and political change brought about by Jacksonian democracy. Rooted in the tradition of the moral reform society, through specialization of its aims, the anti-society seemed to become a democratic pendant of older reform societies and was thought to play a more divisive role in local communities. Critics denounced the new societies for their prescriptive character, the prominent role women played, and the “spirit of opposition” they triggered. Contemporaries increasingly understood the evolution of reform culture from the relatively harmonious religious and moral reform societies of the Benevolent Empire of the first quarter of the 19th century to the oppositional and highly contested organizations of radical antislavery and temperance of the 1830s as a serious threat to the social order and the future of the United States. Using the Benign Violation Theory of Humor, this article argues that the American reaction to anti-societies suggests that while they were broadly perceived as a threat to the social order from the late 1820s on, this threat was at first understood to be benign, and thus could be laughed off, while from 1833 on, anti-societies were increasingly regarded as a destructive force, and provoked substantial fears that could justify violent responses as an alternative way to reinforce the “normal” order of things. Show less
In 1566, the Revolt of the Netherlands against the Habsburg overlord Philip II of Spain erupted. The conflict broke the Low Countries in two parts: the Dutch Republic in the North and the Habsburg... Show moreIn 1566, the Revolt of the Netherlands against the Habsburg overlord Philip II of Spain erupted. The conflict broke the Low Countries in two parts: the Dutch Republic in the North and the Habsburg Netherlands in the South. In these two polities, two radically different narratives about the conflict emerged. Throughout the seventeenth century, people in the North remembered the Revolt as a successful struggle for freedom while inhabitants of the South remembered the conflict less vividly. Historians of the Dutch Republic have shown that in the North a canonical narrative arose about the origins of the conflict. Since they rest on the nationalist-inspired assumption that this was a self-evident development, they have left unaddressed the question of how and why such a narrative came into being. Historians of the Habsburg Netherlands have interpreted the 'silences' in the South as proof that, there, people had forgotten the rebellion. There are no comparative studies that try to explain why and how memories of the past diverged. This study examines how and why such conflicting interpretations of the Revolt arose, why they remained relevant throughout the seventeenth century, and what role memories of the Revolt played in Northern and Southern identity formation. Show less
This thesis studies the relationship of the town al-Fusṭāṭ, located at the southern end of the Nile delta in Egypt, and its hinterland in the period between the town’s foundation in A.D. 641 and... Show moreThis thesis studies the relationship of the town al-Fusṭāṭ, located at the southern end of the Nile delta in Egypt, and its hinterland in the period between the town’s foundation in A.D. 641 and the arrival of the Abbasids in 750. Non-literary sources such as papyri and inscriptions (Arabic, Coptic, and Greek) and archaeology form the main source material of this thesis. Some topics, however, cannot be addressed but via medieval historical sources. The thesis presents four case studies: on (1) the administrative relationship between al-Fusṭāṭ and Alexandria, (2) the economic development of Alexandria after the foundation of al-Fusṭāṭ, (3) al-Fusṭāṭ’s role in the military administration of Upper Egypt, and (4) al-Fusṭāṭ and the legal administration of Upper Egypt. This thesis’s main findings are that the relationship between al-Fusṭāṭ and the rest of Egypt before 750 developed in three main steps: (1) c. 641 until c. 661, a period in which fiscal and military aspects dominated this relationship; (2) c. 661 until c. 700, a first period of centralization (civil, military, and legal administration) coinciding with the Sufyanids’ come to power; and (3) 700 until 750, a second period of centralization (civil, legal, and economic) coinciding with the Marwanid reforms.Egypt, al-Fustat, Alexandria, capital, military, economy, law, papyrology, early Islam Show less
