Bernard Hendrik Slicher, since 1933 calling himself Slicher van Bath, was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

social historian Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

, best known internationally for his 1960 work ''The Agrarian History of Western Europe, AD 500–1850'' and regarded as the initiator of

quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...

social history in his native country. Slicher commenced his studies in history at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in 1930 and moved to

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

in 1934 where he studied under the German medievalist Otto Oppermann. Having graduated in 1936, he took an assistant position with Oppermann, typing the professor's manuscripts and maintaining his library, which brought him into contact with the journal ''

Annales d'histoire économique et sociale ''Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales'' is a French academic journal covering social history that was established in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. The journal gave rise to an approach to history known as the ''Annales'' School. The journ ...

''. Slicher van Bath then worked for some time as an archivist in

Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...

, being able to avoid

conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...

as a former sufferer of

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

, and returned to Oppermann's service in 1941. Oppermann's research interests took an ever more ideological turn toward

national socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

; when he suggested, in 1942, that Slicher should research the Dutch role in the ''

Ostsiedlung (, literally "East-settling") is the term for the Early Medieval and High Medieval migration-period when ethnic Germans moved into the territories in the eastern part of Francia, East Francia, and the Holy Roman Empire (that Germans had al ...

'', Slicher quit his job. During the

war time The history of standard time in the United States began November 18, 1883, when United States and Canadian railroads instituted standard time in time zones. Before then, time of day was a local matter, and most cities and towns used some form ...

, Slicher van Bath pursued a

doctorate degree A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

, initially with Oppermann but soon with the Amsterdam-based historian

Jan Romein Jan Marius Romein (30 October 1893 – 16 July 1962) was a Dutch historian, journalist, literary scholar and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam. A Marxist and a student of Huizinga, Romein is remembered for his popularizing ...

, visiting Romein at his home and later at his hiding place. The thesis was finished in 1944, the doctorate degree awarded half a year after the end of World War II in November 1945. Slicher van Bath finally settled in

Wageningen Wageningen () is a municipality and a historic city in the central Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is famous for Wageningen University, which specialises in life sciences. The municipality had a population of in , of which many t ...

, where he was appointed special professor. in agrarian history and formed what was termed the "Wageningen school" of quantitative history (a label that Slicher vehemently rejected, not wishing to be constrained by the methods of any particular "school"). At the request of the Cambridge Economic History of Europe's editorial board, Slicher van Bath wrote ''The agrarian history of Western Europe, AD 500–1850'', his ''magnum opus'' (initially published in Dutch as ''De agrarische geschiedenis van West-Europa (500–1850)'', 1960). The book got him a guest professorship at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

(1967–68), where Slicher van Bath became interested in the methods of the

new economic history Cliometrics (, also ), sometimes called new economic history or econometric history, is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social and e ...

and shifted his attention to the history of

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. The history of this continent, rather than Annales-style regional studies of the Netherlands and Western Europe, would be his primary research topic until his 1975 retirement.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slicher van Bath, Bernard 1910 births 2004 deaths Historians of agriculture 20th-century Dutch historians Social historians Academic staff of Wageningen University and Research Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences University of Amsterdam alumni University of Groningen alumni Utrecht University alumni People from Leeuwarden Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy