Introduction: Batavian Phlegm? The Dutch and their Emotions in Pre-Modern Times

In the autumn of 2011 the Royal Dutch Historical Society held its annual autumn conference. The theme was Cool, Calm and Collected: The Dutch and their Emotions in Pre-Modern Times. This introduction to the subsequent special issue of the BMGN -Low Countries Historical Review gives a brief historiographical overview of the history of emotions in general and its scant practice to date in the Northern Netherlands. Seven case-studies are introduced that show that the assumed phlegmatic character of the Dutch was a relatively late construction, coming into being in the course of the eighteenth cen... Mehr ...