User:DavidDijkgraaf

History student from Amsterdam in his early 20's trying to make the pages about Dutch military history better.

I also search the depths of the internet to find relevant paintings and illustrations.

I started editing Wikipedia when I noticed the vast disparity between the Wikipedia pages on the Wars of Louis XIV and the narratives in Dutch historiography. It seemed that wiki editors had favoured English and French sources over their Dutch counterparts. I can't blame them though. Dutch isn't exactly a widely known language, even under the historians of the period. Already in 2000 the historian Jamel Ostwald noted about the Anglo-American historiograhpy of the War of the Spanish Succession that:

... a perusal of the large number of English-language works on Marlborough will turn up the surprising fact that none bother to consult the secondary literature written by Dutch historians, much less delve into Dutch primary sources.[...] It is difficult to understand how British historians could be content to scapegoat the Dutch without even bothering to look at Dutch accounts. Until they do so, their conclusions will be based on questionable foundations.[1]

I have tried, and still do, to balance the various pages by adding Dutch sources. My edits wil most often cover Dutch military and diplomatic history in the early modern age, with a focus on the 1650-1750 period, but occasionally I will venture outside that territory.

  1. ^ Ostwald 2000, p. 663–664.