Document Type:
Book
Author/editor:
 David de Boer
 
Standard: Boer, David Roman de [David Roman de Boer][David de Boer][D.R. de Boer]
Title:
The early modern Dutch press in an age of religious persecution : the making of humanitarianism

Standard:

Date of Publication:
 2023
Place of Publication:
 Oxford

Standard: Oxford

Publisher/Printer name:
 Oxford University Presse

Standard: Oxford University Press

ISBN/ISSN:
 978-0-19-887680-9
Pages:
 224 p.
Number of illustrations:
 Ill.
Format :
 24 cm
Subjects:
 Boreel, Willem (1591–1668)
Religious minorities - Europe - 1600-1700
Waldenses - Apologetics - 1655
Waldenses - Dutch diplomatic protection - 1655-1656
Waldenses - English diplomatic protection - 1655-1656
Waldenses - Persecutions - Piedmont - 1655 - Iconography
Waldenses - Persecutions - Piedmont - 1655 - Judgements of the Dutch Press

Summary/Notes:

 Rielaborazione della tesi di dottorato: Religious Persecution and Transnational Compassion in the Dutch Vernacular Press 1655-1745 (Leiden 2029).

 

For victims of persecution around the world, attracting international media attention for their plight is often a matter of life and death. This study takes us back to the news revolution of seventeenth-century Europe, when people first discovered in the press a powerful new weapon to combat religiously inspired maltreatments, executions, and massacres. To affect and mobilize foreign audiences, confessional minorities and their advocates faced an acute dilemma, one that we still grapple with today: how to make people care about distant suffering? David de Boer argues that by answering this question, they laid the foundations of a humanitarian culture in Europe.

As consuming news became an everyday practice for many Europeans, the Dutch Republic emerged as an international hub of printed protest against religious violence. De Boer traces how a diverse group of people, including Waldensians refugees, Huguenot ministers, Savoyard office holders, and many others, all sought access to the Dutch printing presses in their efforts to raise transnational solidarity for their cause. By generating public outrage, calling out rulers, and pressuring others to intervene, producers of printed opinion could have a profound impact on international relations. But crying out against persecution also meant navigating a fraught and dangerous political landscape, marked by confessional tension, volatile alliances, and incessant warfare. Opinion makers had to think carefully about the audiences they hoped to reach through pamphlets, periodicals, and newspapers. But they also had to reckon with the risk of reaching less sympathetic readers outside their target groups.
 
By examining early modern publicity strategies, de Boer deepens our understanding of how people tried to shake off the spectre of religious violence that had haunted them for generations, and create more tolerant societies, governed by the rule of law, reason, and a sense of common humanity.