The second and final volume of this co-authored study has just been published by J.B. Metzler. This second monograph explores the history of the concept of barbarism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

During the two-year History Research Master's programme you will learn from inspired academics and learn how to conduct high quality research.

This project investigates language choice and language use among Swiss mercenaries in the VOC and in the Dutch Colonial Army.

Emily Wolff, PhD candidate at Leiden University, wrote a paper about the inclusion of imperial citizens in the Dutch post-war welfare state.

The Oxford Handbook of Dutch Politics provides a comprehensive longitudinal overview of the state of the art of academic research on the Dutch political system: its origins and historical development, its key institutions, main fault lines, pivotal processes, and key public policy dynamics. In each…

In 1933, Maria Ulfah Santoso was the first Indonesian women to earn a law degree. During her studies in Leiden University she became involved with Indonesia;s nationalist movement. She went on to be Indonesia's Social Minister, as the first female cabinet member. In this article, historian Wildan Sena…

In this article, the authors explore how international criminal law is moving into a ‘post-critical’ phase and examine its potential for emancipatory reform.

The emergence of the Köprülü household that imprinted its stamp on the latter half of the seventeenth century in the Ottoman Empire. What is the power struggle they carried out against Ottoman dynastic power?

How did dynastic organization – that it, the employment of non-ruling family members and the development of dynastic traditions and concepts – influence state formation in both Catholic Europe and Muslim West-Asia?

This research project seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which have…

An interdisciplinary and innovative research group combining History, underwater archaeology, GIS and wood provenancing methods.

Conference

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Dr Alicia Schrikker as Professor History of The Netherlands in the world, effective 1 January 2026. The chair is based at the Institute for History at the Faculty of Humanities.

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of the Americas, deepening your understanding of this large region.

Barbarism: from the 18th century to the present.

Amsterdam painter Dirk Valkenburg (1675–1721) produced some of the earliest depictions of Indigenous and enslaved people on Surinamese sugar plantations – idealized images that conceal the violence of colonialism.

Is it ethical to freely redistribute photographs taken in colonial contexts, historically and today? Christoph Rippe, PhD-candidate Cultural Anthropology, suggests that people might not have been always fully aware of what happened to their photographs after they were taken. 'But nowadays, with the…

Professor Henk Schulte Nordholt was made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion on Friday 6 September 2019 for his services to the study of Indonesia. Mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, presented him with his medal. This was at the end of a valedictory symposium for and a valedictory speech by…

As of 1 September, Ton van Kalmthout has been appointed professor by special appointment of International Exchange of Dutch Literature in a Historical Perspective. In addition to his research into the import and export of Dutch literature, Van Kalmthout will also teach at Leiden University.

The past, present, and future for local people and archaeologists in Sudanese Nubia

Mobility, Globalisation, and Interculturality is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

This book presents the transcriptions and annotated translations of fifteen key historical documents concerning the Tapuia indigenous people written just before and during the Dutch occupation of northeastern Brazil.

The historical archaeology of the Port of Sandy Point and its anchorage, St. Kitts, West Indies

Foreign investments in the Dutch East Indies during the colonial period could have been of more benefit to the Indonesian economy. Foreign investments in the Dutch East Indies during the colonial period could have been of more benefit to the Indonesian economy. But the complicated relationship between…

Links to related organisations, institutes, journals and archives.

On this page you will find an overview of frequently asked questions about the Research Master History.

What was the social function of the colonial civil law courts in eighteenth-century coastal Sri Lanka? Why did people choose to have their disputes settled by Dutch law courts?

The role of transnational, non-institutional networks in the opening up of British transatlantic trade at the end of the 17th/beginning of the 18th century

CADS Research Seminar

What does it mean to be Aruban, Bonairian or Curaçaoan? In the Traveling Caribbean Heritage project historian Gert Oostindie studies this question together with PhD candidate Joeri Arion and heritage specialist Valika Smeulders. Other researchers and the islanders themselves are also collaborating…

The Netherlands is informal, friendly and welcoming. Everyone can feel at home here, regardless of religion, ethnic background or sexual orientation. The Dutch speak many languages and the countryside and cities are easy and safe to travel through, by any means of transport. No matter where you come…

Lecture, Economic and Social History Brown Bag Seminar

The Middle East has a rich literary tradition, which is steadily gaining a foothold in the West. Modern literary works deal with contemporary issues, such as the legacy of colonialism, the struggles between traditionalism and modernity, the place of women in society and the war in Israel/Palestine.

On 8 December 2015, Prof. Carsten Stahn gave a Pufendorf Research seminar at the University of Lund. He spoke on International Criminal Justice and Post-Colonial Critique, drawing on a chapter in a forthcoming volume on Contested Justice, published with Cambridge University Press.

New research has confirmed that the Dutch military used systematic, extreme violence against Indonesians. In his book Soldaat in Indonesië (Soldier in Indonesia), to be released at the end of October, historian Gert Oostindie draws the same conclusions using different sources. He presents new findings…

From experimental essays to comfort reads, and from manga to court literature in verse: Japanese literature has it all.

Comparative and Dutch Politics is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

A multiple isotope approach to human-animal dynamics in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide

The decolonisation war in Indonesia was violent partly because the Dutch military operated on the conviction that ‘an uprising had to be forcibly suppressed.’ This what historian Christiaan Harinck from the KITLV discovered in his PhD research.

Describing almost 1400 maps of Africa in three months. It’s no small task that student assistants Artemis Mantheakis and Beatriz Veiga have been working on within the joint ASCL-UBL Africa Maps Project. The project’s aim is to describe and catalogue a 20th-century map collection of the library of the…

The Amsterdam media played a major role in the rise and fall of Dutch Brazil, the colony held briefly by the Dutch West India Company in the 17th century. This is the conclusion reached by Professor of Maritime History Michiel van Groesen in his book ‘Amsterdam’s Atlantic’.

Volume 4 and 5 of the Leiden series 'Dutch Sources on South Asia' are now available, written by Markus Vink (vol.4) and Carolien Stolte (vol.5).

The MA Neerlandistiek/Dutch Studies at Leiden University provides you with an international view on the Dutch language and culture. You will be able to study the full breadth of Dutch studies: from the Middle Ages to today.