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…

The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Tinde van Andel, extraordinary professor of History of botany and gardens, studies these collections.

Sonic Modernities situates Southeast Asian popular music in specific socio-historical settings, hoping that a focus on popular culture and history may shed light on how some people in a particular part of the world have been witnessing the emergence of all things modern.

The journey of sugar from east to west

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.

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.

In this article, Linde Desmaele examines the dilemmas created by US burden sharing policies from the perspective of Washington's European protégés.

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?

This book explores the links between maritime trading networks around Europe, from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the North and Baltic Seas.

Team Economic and Social History

The Role of Law in Libya’s National Reconciliation (RoLLNaR) was a research project that ran from 2017 to 2020. It identified and assessed the role of law – both actual and potential, enabling and constraining – with regard to major challenges of reconciliation in Libya. The project was led by Dr. Suliman…

This PhD project investigates how nationalist ideas are expressed, shaped, and negotiated in Moroccan Malhun poetry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This monograph by dr. Kim Beerden compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome.

In this article, Vanessa Newby, assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, discusses credibility in peace operations. This article argues that credibility in peace operations must be built for both deterrence and cooperation purposes.

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…

What is the significance of the history of slavery for our present-day society? A special exhibition in the inner courtyard of the Academy Building features eleven insightful portraits of students and staff, and their answer to this question. The aim of the exhibition’s initiators is to make the subject…

This dissertation, Layered Loyalties: The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies (1820-1850), studies the Natuurkundige Commissie.

The Department of Architecture of KU Leuven is looking for two full-time PhD students (48 months) for the ERC-funded project "URBAN-DELTA: Metropolises in the Mud. Innovation in Delta Building Technology in Europe and China before 1800", directed by Merlijn Hurx. Apply before: June 10

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…

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.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the city of Batavia was supplied with produce by its hinterland, known as the Ommelanden. Bondan Kanumoyoso studied the history of the various ethnic groups that populated this area and in doing so has shed light on the structure of modern-day Indonesian society.…

This open access book explores the role of continuity in political processes and practices during the Age of Revolutions.

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

This paper examines cyber intelligence in the context of national and international security.

Life Sciences Artificial Intelligence Data Science

Political scientist Matthew Longo (Leiden University) takes a detailed look at the evolution of border security in the United States after 9/11. Far from the walls and fences that dominate the news, he reveals borders to be thick, multi-faceted and binational institutions that have evolved greatly in…

The spectacular “density” of artworks and architecture in Florence, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site (1982, 2015), reflects a nucleus of some of the most important collecting histories and museums in the world, ranging from the unparalleled Renaissance acquisitions of the Medici dynasty to the…

United States and Chinese foreign assistance and diplomacy addresses the analytic weaknesses of mainstream analysis of foreign aid, which often focuses on its material dimensions. The book underscores the constitutive relationship between foreign aid as a material resource and the diplomatic discourses…

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.