This collection of essays critically engages with Charles Taylor’s idea of a Catholic modernity through focusing on the crucial issue of the shape and role of religion in modernity. Taylor launched the idea in his seminal 1996 essay 'A Catholic Modernity?', and the idea is here explored in relation to other Christian denominations and non-Christian traditions. Taylor’s proposal has the potential to become a central and encompassing perspective in thinking about relations between modernity...

We are increasingly realizing that, as a result of technological developments and globalization, problems are becoming so complex that they can only be solved through cooperation between scientists from different disciplines. Healthcare, climate change, food security, globalization, and quality of life are just a few examples of issues that require scientists to work across disciplines. In many cases, extra-academic stakeholders must be involved in order to arrive at robust solutions. Young a...

Even though office gossip is generally frowned upon, many studies show that gossip in organizations is not only inevitable, but can even be a positive communication tool. However, by gossiping in the wrong way, employees can easily lose the trust of their colleagues and be perceived negatively very quickly.

Research shows that people who claim to never gossip tend to be considered as socially inept, but those that are constantly gabbing at the coffee machine are quickly seen as untrustworthy....

How ‘green’ were people in late antiquity and the Middle Ages? Unlike today, the nature around them was approached with faith, trust and care. The population size was many times smaller than today and human impact on nature not as extreme as it is now. People did not have to worry about issues like deforestation and sustainability.

This book is about the knowledge of plants and where that knowledge came from. How did people use earth and plants in ancient times, and what did they know abo...

Under the slogan ‘Merdeka!’, the Republic of Indonesia rushed into a battle for independence – a struggle whose outcome no one could predict. Harry Poeze and Henk Schulte Nordholt provide a new narrative about the revolution, focusing not only on the fight against the Dutch but also on the precarious rise of the Republic."

After the horrors of the Japanese occupation, the Republican leaders needed to somehow build a new state. From the Dutch side, they had to deal with short-sighted pol...

Contributing to societal change starts with nurturing inner development: personal growth equips individuals with the skills, attitudes and awareness needed to contribute effectively to their communities and society.

Inner Development Conversation Starters is a powerful tool for transition makers, encouraging deep reflection and dialogue. Each of the 46 cards features a thought-provoking question, based on the Inner Development Goals.

Through guided explorations of skills and attitudes, such ...

This innovative introduction to literary studies takes 'the life of texts' as its overarching frame. It provides a conceptual and methodological toolbox for analysing novels, poems, and all sorts of other texts as they circulate in oral, print, and digital form. It shows how texts inspire each other, and how stories migrate across media. It explains why literature has been interpreted in different ways across time. Finally, it asks why some texts fascinate people so much that they are reprodu...

Most people know little more than fragments of Dutch Jewish history: the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam; Jewish socialism; the devastating years of the Second World War. So where is the storyline? What happened to the Jews in the Netherlands from the moment they first settled there permanently? This book answers that question. It presents the central points of 700 years of Jewish history in the Netherlands briefly and succinctly. One hundred elements of the story have been chosen that taken as ...

Institutions across the globe are increasingly questioned on how their foundations are rooted in colonialism and how they aim to ‘decolonize’. The Future of the Dutch Colonial Past provides an overview of critical scholarly reflections on the history of Dutch slavery and colonization, as well as how this translates into critical cultural practices. It also explores possible futures: What can heritage institutions learn from (international) best practices regarding the ‘decolonization’...

Quantum Physics is the solid basis of most of our understanding of nature and has been the driver of many technological advances. The trilogy Power of the Invisible: The Quantessence of Reality gives a coherent account of this huge domain of knowledge, which is linked to some fifty Nobel prizes and is one of the greatest scientific achievements of the twentieth century.

This quantum story follows three lines in parallel: a pictorial, an explanatory and a mathematical one.