Conducts research and collects data on the global history of labour, workers, and labour relations

Past Projects

See also the current research projects.
  • Changing LAbour Relations in Asia (CLARA)

    The International Research Programme on Changing Labour Relations in Asia (1998-2003) aimed to build a comparative and historical understanding of labour relations in different parts of Asia. The...

  • Close Encounters with the Dutch

    Close Encounters with the Dutch: The North Sea as near-core region for a nascent modern world (1550-1750)

    In the seventeenth century Amsterdam became the core metropolis of the world. In...

  • Comparative History of Christian Workers' Organisations 1840-2000

    From the late nineteenth century in continental Europe, and in the second half of the twentieth century also in Quebec, Latin America, Africa and to a much lesser extent Asia, Christian workers'...

  • Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands

    The Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands is an Internet monument dedicated to preserving the memory of all men, women and children...

  • Dutch Trade Union Movement Database

    This project aims to build a database in which information on all ever existing Dutch trade union organizations is brought together. At first basic data referring to foundation, merging,...

  • Fighting for a Living

    This three-year research programme is a comparative study of military recruitment in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, 1500-2000 CE. The innovative character of the project lies in the fact that...

  • Giving in the Golden Age

    This project deals with the history of philanthropy in the Dutch Golden Age.  Dutch funding organization NWO had funded the research project Giving in the Golden Age with 500.000 euro during the...

  • Global Historical Bibliometrics

    Bibliometrics, the science that occupies itself with the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication (Pritchard, 1969), is a field that can be...

  • Global History of Shipbuilding Labour

    The project In the Same Boat? Shipbuilding and ship repair workers: a global labour history (1950-2010) intends to study shipbuilding labour around the world from World War II...

  • Global History of Textile Workers

    Global History of Textile Workers: A global and comparative history of textile workers 1650-2000.

    In the first phase of the project, national studies were written on textile production in...

  • Homosexuality in the Netherlands in the 20th Century

    In 2004 the Institute started three research projects into homosexuality in the Netherlands in the twentieth century.

    In February Anna Tijsseling started her Ph.D. project investigating the...

  • Indonesian Economic Development 1800-2000

    This project is a concerted effort of several researchers at different universities and research institutions. The aim of the project is to reconstruct the national accounts of Java (1815-1939)...

  • Migranten organisaties in Nederland

    Door de tijd heen hebben migranten in Nederland duizenden organisaties opgericht om hun belangen te verdedigen, hun religieuze leven vorm te geven, hun maatschappelijke welzijn te verhogen, hun...

  • Plants, People and Work

    The project Plants, People and Work: The Social History of Cash Crops in Asia, 18th to 20th Centuries started in 2007with a  500,000 euro grant from the Netherlands Organization for...

  • Reconstruction National Accounts of Holland, 1500-1800

    The aim of this project is to analyse the economic development of Holland in the early modern period on the basis of a reconstruction of its national accounts. It will be one of the first times...

  • Reconstruction of the National Accounts of Indonesia 1900-2000

    This project is a part of a wider research project entitled 'Strategies of Economic Development in the Twentieth Century: Europe and Asia' of the N.W. Posthumus Institute for Economic and Social...

  • Selling Sex in the City

    The aim of this project is to write a global and comparative history of female prostitution from 1600 to the present. Notwithstanding the large number of national studies on particular aspects of...

  • SEPHIS

    The South-South Exchange Proramme for Research on the History o|f Development (SEPHIS) is an independent research programme under the aegis of an international Steering Committee consisting of...

  • Social and Economic Agency and the Cultural Heritage of the Soviet Past

    Social norms and practices, mentalities and attitudes inherited from the Soviet period are commonly perceived as important, yet poorly understood, factors determining the outcome of the process of...

  • Socialism and Sexuality

    Begun in 1997 by Francis Ronsin (University of Burgundy, Dijon, France) and other scholars associated with the Institute of Contemporary History (Dijon), the International Institute of Social...

  • Women's Work in the Early Modern Period

    Foreign travellers who visited the Dutch Republic in the early modern period were impressed by the remarkable prominence of Dutch women in public places. Dutch women were reportedly independent...

  • Work, Income and the State in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1900-2000

    Taking the household or the family as the central unit of analysis the project studies income earning strategies of the non-agrarian population in twentieth century Russia and the Soviet Union....