French tyranny at school : the Disaster Year (1672) and the Nieuwe Spiegel der Jeugd

In 1674, the Amsterdam publisher Jan Claesz ten Hoorn printed a new schoolbook, the Nieuwe Spiegel der Jeugd, of Franse Tiranny (New Mirror of Youth, or French Tyranny). The work, based on a chronicle of the recent ‘Disaster Year’ (1672), during which the Dutch Republic was invaded and nearly overrun by a French-led coalition, provided a concise but highly graphic and violent history of these turbulent events for the Dutch youth. The Nieuwe Spiegel became a run-away success, and was one of the most popular Dutch schoolbooks of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This article provide... Mehr ...