Acknowledgements
In one way or another, many persons and institutions were involved in the history of this book. I am indebted to all of them; however, I can only mention a couple of names and groups. First, I wish to thank Andrew Pettegree, since he invited me to publish this book as a volume in the series Library of the Written Word. I felt very honored when he asked me to republish a selection of my chapters and articles that I published in a variety of volumes and periodicals since 2000. Secondly, my thanks go to the University of Groningen, in particular to the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG) for allowing me to write my papers without any obligations concerning content and purpose. ICOG generously supported me in practical affairs, such as travel costs for going to archives, libraries and conferences.
Furthermore, I am indebted to all the previous publishers of this volume’s chapters for giving their permission to republish them, and the institutions that delivered permission to republish illustrations derived from their collections, or offered them for free via the Internet. The concerning publishers are: Institute for Northern and Eastern European Studies (INOS) in Groningen, the Netherlands (chapter three), Peeters in Leuven, Belgium (chapters four, nine and fifteen), Palgrave MacMillan in London, United Kingdom (chapter five), edition lumière in Bremen, Germany (chapter six), Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group) in Abingdon-on-Thames, United Kingdom—as publisher of the periodicals Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies and Media History—(chapters ten and eleven), and Verloren in Hilversum, the Netherlands (chapter fourteen). To make the overview almost complete: Brill earlier published chapters one, seven, eight and twelve in other volumes of the series Library of the Written Word. The institutions related to the illustrations are: University of Groningen Library, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, University Library Leiden, Amsterdam City Archives, The Hague Municipal Archive, Atlas van Stolk in Rotterdam, and the Royal Library in The Hague—all located in the Netherlands. Gerda Huisman and her colleagues of the University of Groningen Library’s Special Collections department earn a special word of thank, because they arranged most of the illustrations, and always very swiftly in cooperation with photographer Dirk Fennema.
The Dutch versions of chapters 2 and 13 were published in respectively the periodicals Mededelingen van de Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman and Leidschrift: Historisch tijdschrift. I am very glad that their editorial boards enthusiastically approved that English translations would be made for this volume. Arthur der Weduwen translated both Dutch texts with great care and accuracy, for which I am very grateful. The same recognition goes for Douwe van der Galiën, who assisted me in the preparation of a part of the bibliography. He also reworked the footnotes of several chapters according to the series’ stylesheet.
This preface also gives me the opportunity to publicly thank all the colleagues in the field—and the institutions behind them—who organized conferences and workshops on which I could present first drafts of this volume’s chapters. Almost the same group of people edited improved versions, making them considerably better by giving fruitful feedback and comments. Their names are mentioned in the introduction, above the first footnotes of the chapters, and in the bibliography. All versions were written in between my educational tasks in the History Department of the University of Groningen. Therefore, in many occasions my students were the first persons hearing my latest research results. I appreciate that they always attentively listened to me when I was talking about my research in corresponding lectures and seminars.
This volume’s footnotes also include the names of several persons because of special reasons, such as providing me with specific information, sending me not yet published material, giving me inspiration to certain ideas and suggestions of new topics, or improving the English of my first drafts. I would like to repeat the names of some of them, and also add a few names here, because I owe particular thanks to them. In alphabetical order: Adriaan Duiveman, Raingard Esser, Anna de Haas, Arend Huussen, Hilde Krips-van der Laan, Jelle Krol, Anjana Singh, Will Slauter, Rietje van Vliet, and Megan Williams. Finally, I would like to thank Bote Smid for his everlasting commitment, always prepared to share my research experiences and to read draft versions of my work. This is the reason why this book is dedicated to him.