In a context of accelerating, institutional, intellectual and moral uncertainties, what role does the scientist play? What role ought he to play, and how can politics and institutional settings facilitate this role? Prof. Beatrice de Graaf explored these questions in her guest lecture at the opening of the academic year at Erasmus University Rotterdam, on 31…

This article discusses the establishment, ideology and actions of the Liberal International and its Turkish group the Society for the Dissemination of Free Ideas (SDFI). The SDFI was the first liberal civil society in Turkey. To this date, little attention has been paid to its actions and ideology. Taking the history of the SDFI as…

This article supplements Anglo- or Prussian dominated readings of the Vienna Conference by focusing more on its beginnings, on alternative scenarios of a Dutch-German union and on the process of diplomatic bargaining by secondary agents. Based on new archival material, German-Dutch cooperation in Vienna is traced and placed in a wider context. Vienna did not…

Wouter Klem published two reviews of the conference “Vienna 1815: The making of a European security culture”. During this conference, the existence of a European security culture was identified and outlined, and the added value of studying international relations, diplomacy and collective (security) enterprises in joint cooperation with detailed historical empirical research was demonstrated. The…

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Dutch Young Academy have organised a major international conference on the Congress of Vienna from 5-7 November 2014 in Amsterdam. The conference was an initiative of Prof. Beatrice de Graaf (Utrecht University) and opened with a public event at the National Archives in The Hague: 1814-1914-2014: Lessons…

Prof. Beatrice de Graaf has been awarded a grant of 1.9 million euros from the European Research Council (ERC) to fund her historical research on European security policy. The Consolidator Grant is a prestigious grant created to advance the work of promising researchers. De Graaf’s project, titled ‘SECURE. Securing Europe, fighting its enemies 1815-1914’, will…