Uploaded June 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In 1692, an Amsterdam orphanage hired a new schoolmaster. Two years later he was forced to resign. Who was this man? The orphanage regents thought they had hired a pious student of theology, but soon after his departure he was excommunicated and tried for heresy as the author of novels that popularized the philosophy of Spinoza. He was part of a circle of Amsterdam 'libertines', a figure of note in the Early Enlightenment. This talk explores the interactions between the structures of Dutch institutions and the agency of an obscure, elusive man 'struggling to be modern'.
Speaker:
Jan de Vries is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor Emeritus of History and Professor Emeritus of Economics at UC Berkeley. De Vries' research interests have ranged from European agrarian history and historical demography and urbanization, and environmental and climate history to the history of consumer behavior. He has written six books and many articles, most recently The Industrious Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2008). De Vries has held visiting fellowships to the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, and All Souls College at Oxford University. He has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the British Academy, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. He was the 2000 recipient of the A.H. Heiniken Prize in History.
In 1692, an Amsterdam orphanage hired a new schoolmaster. Two years later he was forced to resign. Who was this man? The orphanage regents thought they had hired a pious student of theology, but soon after his departure he was excommunicated and tried for heresy as the author of novels that popularized the philosophy of Spinoza. He was part of a circle of Amsterdam 'libertines', a figure of note in the Early Enlightenment. This talk explores the interactions between the structures of Dutch institutions and the agency of an obscure, elusive man 'struggling to be modern'.
Speaker:
Jan de Vries is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor Emeritus of History and Professor Emeritus of Economics at UC Berkeley. De Vries' research interests have ranged from European agrarian history and historical demography and urbanization, and environmental and climate history to the history of consumer behavior. He has written six books and many articles, most recently The Industrious Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2008). De Vries has held visiting fellowships to the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, and All Souls College at Oxford University. He has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the British Academy, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. He was the 2000 recipient of the A.H. Heiniken Prize in History.
