A frequent complaint in Western society is that young people are ignorant of the history of their country of residence. Politicians as well as some prominent historians blame school history for not offering a convincing vision of the national past. Most history educators, however, are of a different opinion. Why the relationship between historical scholarship and school history is problematical is not clear. This research project seeks to analyze specific aspects of this relationship: the narration of the nation in history textbooks. The central question is to what extent developments in historical scholarship have influenced the national narrative in Dutch and English history textbooks for secondary education between 1920 and 2010. The project also investigates possible dynamic interactions between scholarship and school history. To discover whether developments have been the result of national circumstances, the project compares textbooks from the Netherlands and England. Both nations originate in early-modern times, are former colonial empires and have a culturally heterogeneous population. Dutch and English historians regularly participate in debates about history teaching. Since the 1980s, historical skills are part of Dutch and English history curricula. Differences include: the international position of both countries, the infrastructure of the history profession, the amount of national history in school curricula, curriculum organization and the markets of history textbooks for commercial publishers. The research period covers major developments since the 1920s. Hence, the context relates to at least four other influential factors: 1. The impact of global transformations on domestic issues and the public self-image of both countries (since the 1920s continuation of colonial framing of both nations; after 1945 de-colonization; in the 1960s a mellowing of nationalism in post-war Europe; since the 1990s re-nationalization); 2. National education policies and regulations; 3. The rise of educational studies; 4. The changing textbook market and emerging new media. The project seeks to elucidate the relationship between historical scholarship and school history. It will investigate continuities and discontinuities in presenting national history in Dutch/English textbooks, and will support Dutch teachers by enhancing their insights in the changing contents and standards of history textbooks.

A new synthesis about the transformation of early modern rule is necessary, since older assumptions about the making of an institutional bureaucratic state have been undermined. As a consequence, early modern comments on reason of state need to be re-interpreted. They were often (mis-)understood as mirroring the gradual replacement of medieval rule based on personal ties and Christian values by institutionalized power states. Since the 1950s, many of the assumptions on which this interpretation was based have been questioned. The project will re-interpret these comments as reason of princes, analyzing the fundamental transformation in the nature of early modern rule not in terms of state building, but as driven by participation in war on an unprecedented scale and by new constellations within society backing up the enormous increases in war related burdens. It will summarize this new constellation as new monarchy. The project will link this re-interpretation with evidence from pamphlet polemics and estate debates on princely politics. Both sources reflected the debate within society over war-politics and the new constellations in society favoring it. By combining research on contemporary analyses of princely politics with research on the struggle within societies about the consequences of princely politics, the project will contribute to a new synthesis of the nature of Early Modern rule that will be addressed as new monarchy. This combination of intellectual and social history with an international comparison makes this project unique in its kind.