Memory in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800

Judith Pollmann is Professor of Early modern Dutch history at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She has published widely on the experience and impact of religious and political change in early modern Europe, and on the history of the Dutch Revolt. Much of her work on identity and experience is based on diaries, memoirs and chronicles. Memory in Early Modern Europe is the outcome of a research project entitled Tales of the Revolt. Memory, oblivion and identity in the Low Countries, 1566-1700, that she directed from 2008-2013. She is a member of the editorial board of Past & Present.

This book is an excellent study for new scholars to the discipline of memory studies and allows them to situate their own research within this thorough but synoptic overview. It asks difficult questions of pre-established notions in memory studies, and asks its reader to engage in important conversations in this ever-expanding field. Pollmann's book is thus a valuable and much-needed contribution to memory studies.

• Introduction 1: Scripting the self 2: Past and present: The virtues of anachronism 3: Customizing the past 4: Imagining communities 5: Living legends: Myth, memory, and authenticity 6: Acts of oblivion 7: Remembering violence: Trauma, atrocities, and cosmopolitan memories Conclusion Bibliography Index