Alice C. Carter – författare

The five previous volumes of the Acta Historiae Neerlandicae appeared under the auspices of the Netherlands Committee for Historical Sciences. When in 1970 this Committee merged with the Historical Society to form the Dutch Historical Society (Nederlands Historisch Genootschap) an opportunity arose to rethink the aims of the Acta's original promotors. Also this sixth and succeeding volumes became the responsibility of the new combined Society as above. The volumes will from now on be published at The Hague by Martinus Nijhoff. From the early days of the Acta language barriers were broken down, and interested scholars from other countries could acquaint themselves with deve­ lopments in historical work in the Low Countries hitherto published only in Dutch. The Acta thus enabled discussion on Dutch historical topics to become international. However, initially subjects covered a wide field, not only of Dutch but also of general history, and articles were translated from Dutch not only into English but also into French and German. If sales can be taken as a guide, it appeared that scholars were not finding in the Acta precisely what they were seeking. Editors' expectations, and therefore their hopes, were, it was felt, going unrealised.

The editors of the seventh volume of Acta Historiae Neerlandicae have followed the same lines as those adopted for its predecessor. Studies have again been selected which throw light on the history of the Low Countries, the choice again being directed to subjects likely to be of interest to foreign scholars lacking knowledge of the Dutch language. For this reason articles fairly general in scope have been chosen: studies of local interest or concerned with matters of detail have not been included. In this volume a wide diversity of topics is treated. Included are studies in the economic and social history of the later Middle Ages, and on subjects in the fields of the sixteenth and early half of the eighteenth centuries. There are two articles on the nineteenth century Dutch statesman Thorbecke (1972 was the anniversary of his death). And there are also contributions on the homeland of Erasmus and on Dutch reactions to the publication of Darwin's Origins of Species. Also included are surveys of recent historical publications in the Netherlands and of those from Belgian historians that appeared in Dutch. A group of English historians, working under the guidance of Professor Swart, of University College, London, has surveyed the former, this article being edited by Mrs Alice Carter of the London School of Economics. The task of the late Professor Dhondt, of the University of Ghent, in connection with the survey of the Belgian contributions written in Dutch has been taken over by W.