Wijnand Mijnhardt, born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1950. Ph.D. from Utrecht University. Chair in Cultural History at Utrecht University.
Fellow (1 February 2004 – 30 June 2004)
AN URBAN ENLIGHTENMENT: THE DUTCH REPUBLIC 1640-1830
At NIAS, I completed three articles for various volumes and journals. The first of these was on the cultural history of Amsterdam in the eighteenth century, explaining Amsterdam’s cultural inertia in this period. It will be published as part of volume II of the New History of Amsterdam in 2004. The second article is a contribution to a volume on ‘Bibliotheksgeschichte’ concentrating on the role of public as well as private libraries in the organization of knowledge in the period of 1650-1850 Thirdly, I finished an article entitled “Dutch perceptions of World War II: the struggle with an unredeemable past” in which I tried to establish a relationship between the Memory of the War and the transformations in the Dutch writing of history since the 1960’s.
The remainder of my time was devoted to the book project: An Urban Enlightenment: the Dutch Republic 1640-1815. The wonderfully efficient library services and the quiet atmosphere at the NIAS enabled me to rethink the book and establish a new outline and a new set-up. I was able to finish the Introduction as well as the first chapter and to prepare the major part of chapter V and the new epilogues. During my stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in the spring of 2005 I will complete the manuscript and submit it to Amsterdam University Press and The University of Chicago Press who will be publishing the book simultaneously in English and Dutch.