This research project addresses an unexplored dimension of historical conflict resolution: the dynamics of strategic choices made by traders engaged in foreign trade. The setting is Danzig (Gdansk) c. 1450-1580, a Hanseatic city under the Polish Crown, which was the gateway to Baltic grain trade and one of the main commercial hubs in pre-modern Europe. For Danzig traders, both large- and small-scale conflicts were disruptive to their business. They therefore employed various diplomatic and legal strategies to deal with these conflicts. The project proceeds from the idea that there was a shift in the Baltic commerce in the period, namely states increased their influence, while networks of towns and traders had to renegotiate their position. It investigates the impact of this shift on the choice of conflict resolution strategies by Danzig traders with their foreign partners, and it aims to determine which strategies were (in)effective. The novel approach is to examine conflict resolution on three levels: micro (individuals), meso (groups) and macro (countries/Hanse towns); this will re-evaluate the effects of national conflicts on relations of groups and individuals. The way Danzig traders handled conflicts with Hansards from other towns and non-Hansards (Hollanders, Englishmen, Poles) will be compared in terms of policy (development of norms), practice (employment of strategies) and perception (contemporary evaluation). Special attention will be paid to the language of conflict resolution. The analysis will be based on published and unpublished sources (in German, Polish, Latin, Dutch and English), the latter mainly from the Gdansk archives. These sources have as of yet only been fragmentarily analysed. In a broader context, the investigation aims to determine the role of strategic conflict resolution choices in the continuation (or discontinuation) of trade relations in pre-modern Europe, and contribute to both the theoretical and to the general discussion on effective conflict resolution.

For innovation to happen it is not enough that new ideas and technologies are being invented. Cultural factors play an essential role in their acceptance and appropriation. Recent scholarship hypothesises that Europeans after 1650 became more receptive to new technology and innovation than their ancestors, and so enabled the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. The spread of new knowledge and techniques among scholars and specialists between 1500-1850 is indeed well-documented. Yet since acceptance by specialists does not guarantee wider acceptance, we will study how and to what effect, new knowledge actually anchored among the wider public. This project focuses on the circulation and evaluation of new knowledge, ideas and technologies among a non-specialist public of middle-class authors in the Netherlands, who kept handwritten chronicles to record events and phenomena that they considered important. We develop a method to use them in large numbers and comparatively, so as to track and analyse the circulation, evaluation and acceptance of old and new ideas and information over time and spatially. We will create a large high quality annotated corpus of texts, develop computational tools to trace patterns in topics, perspectives and appreciation of novelty and to alert us to passages that require further, qualitative analysis by close reading. In this way we will assess the circulation of new ideas, their reception, and the impact on attitudes to novelty and tradition in wider society.

The proposed study portrays and investigates the life and work of the nationally and internationally acknowledged Dutch orientalist H.A. Hamaker (1789-1835). Hamakers views and ideas are placed within the broader context of the politics, ideologies and educational and scholarly developments of the day. This study tries to establish how far reaching Hamakers influence and that of his field of interest and scholarly discipline of oriental languages was on the formation of ideas within the spheres of society in question in the early 19th century.

It is time for the Dutch to face their primordial enemy. While the image of a heroic struggle for freedom against an oppressive Spanish army during the Dutch Revolt may be firmly embedded in the story of the birth of the Dutch national state, Dutch historiography has never dared to closely examine these Spanish antagonists. National creation myths demand clear-cut opponents, but prefer to treat them as an anonymous, monolithic collective. Analyzing this classic historical case will provide an example for confronting other national stories worldwide with their most fundamental enemies. As national borders become increasingly permeable, canonical national histories should follow suit. How were war heroes and war criminals created, and how do these images relate to the historical context? This project concentrates on the commanders of the Spanish army residing in the Low Countries between 1567 and 1577. Drawing on both Dutch and Spanish sources, it literally gives a face to the enemy. We want to know how these historical figures became either war heroes or war criminals in narrative sources from Spain and the Low Countries but also how these images relate to actual war experiences as reflected in the commanders? letters, a rich source virtually neglected up to the present. By combining modern narrative analysis from cultural studies with in-depth archival research, this project aims to bridge the methodological gap still yawning between the two traditions, creating a dynamic vision of the Spanish army in the Low Countries and placing the subject in a wider context of warfare and military violence.

How did -free agents- in the Dutch Republic react to the creation of colonial monopolies (VOC and WIC) by the States General? This proposal will answer this question by looking at the role individuals played in the construction of an informal global empire parallel to the institutional empire devised by the States General and enabled by the chartered monopolies. Even though traditional historiography underlines the role institutionalized monopolies played in building empires, the paper trail produced by central states, colonial administrations, commercial Companies and notaries reveal an alternative narrative of empire. Even though commercial monopolies were the cornerstone of empire building during most of the Early Modern period, monopolies were permanently challenged, adjudicated, rented out, co-opted or simply hijacked by free agents (the Spanish asientos, the Portuguese contractos, the English East India Company or the French royal monopolies and Companies are cases in point). Free agents came into conflict with the Companies from the very beginning of the monopolies. We hypothesize that the interactions between free agents and the Companies took different forms, from open conflict, to cooperation and, at times, even representation resulting in an informal empire. The informal empire brought about by the individual choices of free agents and their networks was a borderless, self-organized, often cross-cultural, multi-ethnic, pluri-national and stateless world that can only be characterized as global. How does the Dutch experience of informal empire building compare to the same sort of process taking place in Portugal, Spain, England and France? This comparative approach will bring to the fore the extent to which Dutch empire building followed general Early Modern trends. It will also analyze what those trends mean for our broader understanding of empire building, in general, as an aspect of state formation/centralization and the transition from an Early Modern into a Modern society.