Revolutionaire tijden. Politiek en idealen rond 1800
Recently, Dr Ren茅 Koekkoek (History and Art History) wrote an opinion piece in Het Parool on resistance to emancipation, specifically in the eighteenth century. This week Ambo|Anthos publishes Koekkoek's new book on social revolutions around this period, titled .
The eighteenth century
The revolutions of the late eighteenth century undoubtedly formed the basis of the democratic constitutional state, although historians have often dismissed them as hopelessly naive. But there are also historians who overenthusiastically praised these revolutions. In Revolutionaire tijden, Koekkoek takes the reader along four revolutions of the late eighteenth century: the rebellious colonies in North America, the dramatic summer months of 1789 in Paris, the Haitian Revolution in the Caribbean and the first exercise in democracy on Dutch soil: the Batavian Republic.
Revolutions in a new light
In his book, Koekkoek shows that social revolutions are always a mix of dramatic upheavals and traumatic experiences, of ideals and pragmatic decisions, political and personal struggles, moments of hope and disillusionment. Revolutionaire tijden is a dazzling and compelling written history of ideas that sheds new light on turning points in the past and present. Koekkoek offers a new perspective on our ideas about fundamental rights, nation, citizenship, sovereignty and equality.
Koekkoek describes the field of ideas sown by the revolutions of the eighteenth century in clear, accessible language, often drawing connections with the present.