Agenda
1 December 2016
15:30 - 17:00
Sweelinckzaal, Drift 21
Utrecht Historical Lecture Series: Jan de Vries, The Return from the Return to Narrative
The social sciences had a major impact on historical research and writing in the 1960’s and 1970’s. From the Annales School to the New Economic History, the venerable discipline of history appeared to be entering a period of renewal and the social sciences entering a period of greater historical engagement. The 1980’s brought the “cultural turn”, and a sharp reaction against social scientific methodologies. I discuss these developments, primarily from the perspective of history and the social sciences in the United States, and attempt to bring the story up to the present day, when a new era of collaboration between history and the social sciences shows signs of dawning.Jan de Vries (1943) obtained his Ph.D. in 1970 (Yale University). Since 1977 he has been Professor of History and, since 1982, Professor of History and Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. Professor de Vries and Ad van der Woude co-authored the standard work The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy from 1500 to 1815 (Cambridge 1997), which was awarded the Gyorgy Ranki Prize for ‘the best book on the economic history of Europe’. Professor De Vries is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and various other scholarly organizations. From 1991 to 1993 he held the post of president of the Economic History Association, and he is an editor of the Journal of Economic History.