With Florike Egmond

Much of the Netherlands would be under water—and would have been under water for the past 500–800 years—if its inhabitants had not managed to artificially keep out the water of the sea and the rivers. This keynote talk by University of Leiden historian Florike Egmond focuses on the Dutch river delta as an area comparable in many ways with the Venetian lagoon. Starting in the twentieth century, Florike Egmond traverses five hundred years of history back to the sixteenth century, looking at the natural disasters and technologies that have shaped the geography and culture of the Netherlands. She discusses notions of control over nature, land as a resource, water as both enemy and safeguard, early modern perceptions of the sea as a resource, and suggests that the historiographical discourse of technological success needs revision.