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Posthumus General Board member Professor Erik van der Vleuten (TUE), together with Professor Jacqueline Broerse and Dr Evelien de Hoop (both VU Amsterdam) and Professor Claiton M. da Silva (Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul, Brazil) was recently awarded funding by NWO in the Open Competition for the international 5-year project project ‘SOY STORIES: Connected sustainability histories and futures of the global Soyacene’.

Different regions across the globe face grave sustainability challenges that may be at once highly diverse and highly interconnected. SOY STORIES investigates diverse Brazilian and Dutch sustainability histories connected by soy, and studies how a connected diversity perspective can contribute to imagining more inclusive sustainable futures. Since the 1970s, accelerating soy production in Brazil has been associated with challenges such as large-scale deforestation, land-grabbing, and child labor, while soy-based intensive animal farming in the Netherlands came with challenges such as a 4-decades-long national manure and nitrogen crisis, public health hazards, greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare problems. This study is important because historiography currently lacks a convincing approach to investigate the connected histories of diverse sustainability challenges. In turn, this omission entrenches a similar lack of connected thinking in future imaginaries.

To tackle this problem, SOY STORIES combines expertise in sustainability history and transnational history on both sides of the Atlantic (Eindhoven History Lab Eindhoven University of Technology and UFFS, Brazil) with expertise in transdisciplinary research (TDR) for sustainable futures (Athena Institute, VU, NL). We combine in-depth historical research based on written source analysis and oral history on both sides of the Atlantic with regular stakeholder interaction. We continuously monitor and evaluate the effects of this combination of methods and approaches to make novel contributions to the fields of sustainability history, soy historiography and TDR.

The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Erik and his project partners with this award.

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Although we generally do not include book offers in our website or newsletters, we thought it wise to make an exception for two book offers we received recently, because of their relevance for Posthumus affiliates. Please note that all contact regarding these offers are between you and the supplier, the N.W. Posthumus Institute is no party in this matter.

Free copies Inequality and the City

The first offer concerns a limited number of free copies of the publication Inequality and the City in the Low Countries (1200-2020), eds. Bruno Blondé, Sam Geens, Hilde Greefs, Wouter Ryckbosch, Tim Soens, Peter Stabel.

Social inequality is one of the most pressing global challenges at the start of the 21st century. Meanwhile, across the globe at least half of the world’s population lives in urban agglomerations, and urbanisation is still expanding. This book engages with the complex interplay between urbanisation and inequality. In doing so it concentrates on the Low Countries, one of the oldest and most urbanised societies of Europe. It questions whether the historic poly-nuclear and decentralised urban system of the Low Countries contributed to specific outcomes in social inequality. In doing so, the authors look beyond the most commonly used perspective of economic inequality. They instead expand our knowledge by exploring social inequality from a multidimensional perspective. This book includes essays and case-studies on cultural inequalities, the relationship between social and consumption inequality, the politics of (in)equality, the impact of shocks and crises, as well as the complex social relationships across the urban network and between town and countryside.

A limited number of copies is available free of charge on the base of ‘first come, first served’. Please use the button below to access the order form.

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Offer from personal collection em. Professor Knotter

The second offer is by emeritus Professor Ad Knotter, who offers some standard works form his own library to those interested free of charge. The offer concerns some standard works in Economic and Social History:

• AAG-bijdragen 8-23 en 29-39
• Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek VI-XVIII en XXX-LVI
• NEHA-Jaarboek en NEHA-bulletin 1994-2002
• Economic and Social History in the Netherlands (6 dln)

For this offer, also based on ‘first come, first served’, you can contact professor Knotter directly via e-mail, please use the button below for this.

MAIL PROF. KNOTTER

Just before the Summer holidays, the N.W. Posthumus Institute received a collection of books and documents, until then owned by relatives of N.W. Posthumus (1880-1960). Among them were some personal documents, the earliest of which dated from N.W. Posthumus’ times as student at the University of Amsterdam, and several of his later books and publications. As the N.W. Posthumus Institute’s seat changes every five years, with the approval of N.W. Posthumus granddaughter Jocelyn, we have found a sound and structural place for the personal documents within the archives of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. The N.W. Posthumus Institute expresses its gratitude to the Posthumus family for this kind gesture.

In August 2022, publishing house Brill has published a new book by Professsor Peer Vries, entitled An East Asian Route of Industrialization? The Case of Japan, 1868-1937. With this book Peer Vries is the first scholar to provide an extensive test of the claim that industrialization in East Asia, in particular in Japan between the Meiji Restoration and World War Two, would have been much more labor intensive than industrialization in the West. He does this by systematically comparing the role and importance of labour and capital in Japan and in a number of Western countries at a similar stage of their industrial development. He uses macro-economic data as well as specific observations by people at the time. It turns out that there is no reason to distinguish a specific labor-intensive Japanese route of industrialization. His comparative analysis provides us with a better understanding of the logic of industrialization in both West and East.

About the author

Prof. dr. Peer Vries has studied Economic and Social History at leiden University. Currently, he isHonorary Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. He is member of the Academia Europaea co-founder of the Journal of Global History as well as of the Global Economic History Network.