IISH Annual Report 2021

In 2021, the second Covid year, the Institute alternated between lockdowns, partial opening and restricted opportunities to work at Cruquiusweg. Despite our best efforts to maintain services for reading room visitors (e.g. by digitizing on request), we had to disappoint many visitors.The limited access to our building made us aware of the importance of personal contact.

Notwithstanding these restrictions, the Institute remained operational, and we were pleased to welcome Jan Lucassen’s magnum opus The Story of Work, published in July by Yale University Press (followed by a Dutch translation in the autumn), which may be regarded as a major synthesis of the long-term research programme on the history of global labour relations.



Other highlights include international interest in our Spanish anarchist collections, the successful online European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC) and the Eight Hours Festival in the autumn.



Also in 2021, Afelonne Doek, who headed up the Collections Department for almost a decade, left the Institute to accept the prestigious position of National Archivist. Eric de Ruijter was appointed interim Director of Collections.