News

Confronting study shows Dutch state’s involvement in colonial slavery and its continuing impact



The Dutch state was involved in colonial slavery in the Atlantic and Asian world in an intentional, systematic and sustained way. The impact and afterlives of this continue to affect the Netherlands and other countries all over the world.

We are deeply shocked and saddened by the death of our former colleague Bart de Cort. Bart joined the IISH in 1990 and until he left for Canada in 2006, he worked for almost every department of the Institute.

Last month, Professor of Global Economic and Social History Pepijn Brandon held his inaugural lecture at VU Amsterdam about how large-scale violence has played an extremely important role in the history of capitalism.

On 25 May 2023 the IISH organised an event regarding the past achievements and future perspectives of global labour from the perspectives of Marcel van der Linden and Jan Lucassen, successive directors of research at IISH.

Filipa Ribeiro da Silva has been awarded the NWO Open Competition SSH - M funding with her project 'The Global Business of Slave Trade – Patterns, Actors and Gains in the Early Modern Dutch and Iberian Slave Trade in Asia'.  

Het in 2022 gestarte project Staat en slavernij van het KITLV, NiNsee, de Universiteit van Curaçao en het IISG over het Nederlandse koloniale slavernijverleden lanceert de projectweb

Wij zijn voor het project Resisting Enslavement op zoek naar twee promovendi (0,8 tot 1,0 fte). 

Suiker zit in bijna alles. Hoe dat komt verklaart IISG-onderzoeker Ulbe Bosma in The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years (Harvard University Press, 2023). Deze eerste echte wereldgeschiedenis van de suiker legt uit hoe dit aanvankelijk zo dure luxeartikel een vast bestanddeel kon worden in bijna alle industriële voedingsmiddelen.

In early April, the International Institute of Social History (IISH) launched a doctoral research project on the slavery connections of the Assurance Company of 1771. The research is funded by Nationale Nederlanden (NN). Nationale Nederlanden has no influence on the research.

International Conference on November 2-3, 2023, by the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), University of Bonn, Germany, and the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The conference is organized by Stephan Conermann, Karin Hofmeester, Ulbe Bosma and Matthias van Rossum.

With the generous support of Farman-Farmaian Family, the IISH launches a new fellowship programme named the Prince Dr Sabbar Farman-Farmaian Fellowships for scholars who wish to use its collections for the study of social and economic history of 18-20 century of Iran, whether from a regional, national, or comparative and transnational perspective.