The project ‘Diversifying Ancient History’, sponsored by the JEDI Fund from the Faculty of Humanities, aims to thoroughly revise the first-year curriculum of Ancient History. Through these innovations, the course will cater the needs of the present generation.

This collection of seventeen essays takes its inspiration from the scholarly achievements of the Dutch historian Jan Lucassen. They reflect a central theme in his research: the history of labor.

The master’s programme in Arts and Culture at Leiden University is uniquely positioned at the intersection of Art History and Museum Studies. Informed by leading interdisciplinary research, this degree provides you with a strong academic foundation for a variety of careers in museums, galleries and…

Our team is committed to the study of knowledge in its broadest sense, encompassing both ideas and practices in all its historical variety. We look at what people regarded as knowledge, how they created, collected, circulated and used it, also why it mattered to them, and how all this was embedded in…

The motto of the Institute for History is: ‘Global questions, local sources.’ Its researchers use local sources to find answers to major historical questions. Without historical analysis, it is impossible to understand and explain the issues in society today. Leiden itself has a rich history, with big…

The Greek and Roman History Team concentrates on the study of the economies, societies and cultures of the large empires of the Graeco-Roman world, starting with the empires of Alexander the Great and his successors.

Helen Steele is a lecturer at International Studies.

Rens Tacoma is a university lecturer at the Institute for History.

The Leiden University Institute for History is responsible for the main part of the historical research carried out at Leiden University. The institute has a wide-ranging academic scope.

What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?

Read on these pages all about the history of Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands. The Academia Lugduna Batava was founded in 1575 and its motto is: Libertatis Praesidium ('Bastion of Freedom').

Team Economic and Social History

What is nationalism and how can we study it from a historical perspective? Writing the History of Nationalism answers this question by examining eleven historical approaches to nationalism studies in theory and practice.

Marion Pluskota is assistant professor in Social and Economic History specialized in crime history and the history of prostitution/sex work.

Leiden University has been an attractive destination for scholars ever since 1575. Our staff members welcome international colleagues to campus to discuss issues from the past, and how we should presently understand the past. ‘Leiden Conversations in History’ is a series of dialogues between historians…

Dennie Oude Nijhuis is University Lecturer at the Institute for History.

A global perspective on the nature and evolution of nationalism, from the early modern era to the present.

This project aims to situate the current policy concept of ‘valorization of scientific knowledge’ in historical and epistemological perspectives. Conceptual understanding of the utility of scientific practices is developed in dialogue with historical analyses of the politics of knowledge in European…

Eileen van der Burgh is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History.

This project traces how, why, and under what circumstances scholars invoked the trope of “dogmatism,” especially in controversies. Relevant controversies from various fields, periods, and countries will be subjected to in-depth rhetorical analysis.

In Migration and Membership Regimes editors Ulbe Bosma, Gijs Kessler and Leo Lucassen bring together ten essays in an analytical framework which looks beyond the Transatlantic migration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a deliberate attempt to incorporate the experience of earlier periods…

At the initiative and expense of His Majesty King Willem‑Alexander, Leiden University will conduct a study into the role of the House of Orange‑Nassau in Dutch colonial history. The project will run from 2023 to 2026.

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes; World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting.

Linking botanical collections, peoples, and illustrations in seventeenth century Dutch Brazil

The Centre for the History of European Integration (CHEI) is an initiative that brings together scholars working on European integration, broadly conceived, from a historical perspective.

Life Sciences Artificial Intelligence Data Science

Understanding the history of Islam and Muslim societies sheds a clear light on the complex and changing social structures of the Middle East, including the current trouble spots whose effect spreads all the way to Western Europe.

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.

To safeguard the quality of research within Leiden University, a committee of external experts evaluates the University’s institutes once every six years according to the Standard Evaluation Protocol which is drawn up by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), The Royal Netherlands…

The figure of the barbarian has captivated the Western imagination from Greek antiquity to the present. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism has taken center stage in Western political rhetoric and the media. But how can the longevity and popularity of this opposition be accounted…

Louis Sicking lectures medieval and early modern history at the Leiden University Institute for History and is Aemilius Papinianus professor of History of Public International Law, at VU University Amsterdam.

The third project, worked on by dr. Rina Knoeff, is a synthesising project directed at studying the Leiden anatomical collections as important parts of ‘public history’. It will use the results of the other projects in order to analyse anatomical collections (their focus, significant silences, audiences,…

Randal Sheppard is University Lecturer at the Institute for History.

Ben Schoenmaker was Professor by special appointment of Military History from 2012 to 2024, on behalf of the Netherlands Defence Academy.

Leiden University's master’s programme in Ancient History is your opportunity to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the history of the Greek and Roman periods, with a focus on the mentality and social and economic history of the period between 400 B.C. and 400 A.D.

The Leiden Institute of History approaches early modern and modern European history from comparative and transnational perspectives.

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

Welcome to the Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History. The initiatives and projects undertaken here are under the auspices of the Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy. As a centre, we aim to promote the study of Arabic and Islamic thought and history, in all its different…

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This book by Damien van Puyvelde provides the first comprehensive English-language account of France's modern foreign intelligence and explores its evolution, operations, and role in global security.

Anne-Isabelle Richard is a university lecturer at the Institute for History.