About

I am a Dutch historian at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and the author of six books. I am chiefly interested in cultural and political history, especially that of the early modern period (c. 1500-1800). My writing and research focusses mostly on the history of news, books, communication and politics.

I grew up in Amsterdam; after undergraduate study at the University of Exeter, I pursued postgraduate work at St Andrews, and defended my PhD in Modern History in 2018. Since then I have been a postdoctoral researcher (2018-2023) and now Lecturer at St Andrews.

I am a long term associate of the Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC), a pioneering bibliographical project that provides free access to descriptions and digital scans of all printed matter (books, pamphlets, newspapers) produced before 1701. I am currently the Co-Director and Project Manager of the USTC.

In 2020 I was awarded a three-year British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at St Andrews, and I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In 2023 I was awarded a 5-year ERC Starting Grant, taken up at St Andrews as a UKRI Frontier Research Grant, to lead a collaborative project, “Communicating the Law in Europe, 1500-1750”.

My next major project to appear in print is The Dutch Armada: The Last Invasion of England, to be published by Princeton University Press in 2026.

I am represented by Catherine Clarke of Felicity Bryan Associates.