Willem Klooster

Professor, History

Professor Klooster received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Groningen in 1983 and 1987, respectively, and a Ph.D. from the University of Leiden in 1995. He has been at Clark since 2003.

Dr. Klooster specializes in the history of the Atlantic world (15th-19th centuries). He teaches classes on comparative colonialism (the Americas), the age of Atlantic revolutions (1776-1824), and Caribbean history.

Degrees

  • Ph.D. in History, University of Leiden, 1995
  • M.A. in History, University of Groningen, 1987
  • B.A. in Sociology, University of Groningen, 1983

Affiliated Department

History

Scholarly and creative works

  • Article in Refereed Journal

    Soixante ans après Palmer. L’historiographie récente de l’ère des révolutions et la politique nordaméricaine actuel.

    Published in ORDA. L’ordinaire des Amériques.
    June
    2025
    Vol. 233
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Radical Royalism in the Age of Revolutions

    Universität Leipzig (Germany)
    April
    2025
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Fighting for Legal Equality: Jewish Agency in the Age of Revolutions

    Centrum für Jüdische Studien, Universität Graz (Austria)
    April
    2025
    Sponsored by Centrum für Jüdische Studien, Universität Graz (Austria)
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Idea of Freedom among the Laboring People in the Age of Revolutions

    Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon (Portugal)
    March
    2025
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    The Asiento and the Transatlantic Trade of Enslaved Africans (circa 1580-1750): Trade Networks and Transnational Connectors
    Chapter: Exiting the Asiento: Diplomacy and the Dutch Slave Trade during the War of the Spanish Succession.

    2025
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    European Colonial Failures, c. 1560-1800: Early Modern Polities, Overseas Interests, and Empire Building
    Chapter: Nipped in the Bud or Put Out of Its Misery? Dutch Cayenne as a Colonial Endeavor

    2025
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    Shaping Brazil: Colonialism and governance – from the Portuguese Enlightenment to Brazilian Independence (1750-1825)
    Chapter: Foreword

    Published by Routledge
    2025
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    Ibero-Dutch Imperial Entanglements in the Long Seventeenth Century: Geopolitical Shifts in Global Perspective
    Chapter: The Mutual Constitution of the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish Empires in the Long Seventeenth Century.

    Published by Palgrave MacMillan
    2024
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Sixty Years Since Palmer: Assessing the Current Historiography of the Age of Revolutions

    American Politics and the Memory of the Revolution (18th-21st centuries)
    Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès (France)
    November
    2024
    Willem Klooster
  • Reviews, Abstracts, Pamphlets

    Review of Seohyon Jung and Leah M. Thomas, eds., Edges of Transatlantic Commerce in the Long Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge, 2021. 

    New West Indian Guide
    Fall
    2024
    Vol. 98
    Issue #3-4
    Willem Klooster
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    荷属大西洋的水手》,白译;梅雪芹、田马爽、郭逸鹏审校 

    Published in 海洋史研究
    Fall
    2024
    Vol. 19
    Willem Klooster
  • Book

    The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

    2023
    Cambridge
    UK
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
    Chapter: Introduction

    Published by Cambridge University Press
    2023
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
    Chapter: International Warfare and the non-British Caribbean

    Published by Cambridge University Press
    2023
    Willem Klooster
  • Book

    Jewish Entanglements in the Atlantic World 

    2023
    Ithaca, New York
    USA
    Wim Klooster, Aviva Ben-Ur
  • Book

    Jewish Entanglement in the Atlantic World

    2023
    Ithaca, New York
    USA
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    Jewish Entanglement in the Atlantic World
    Chapter: (with Aviva Ben-Ur) “Introduction: The Revolutionary Potential of Atlantic Jewish History

    Published by Cornell University Press
    2023
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    Jewish Entanglement in the Atlantic World
    Chapter: Jewish Involvement in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

    Published by Cornell University Press
    2023
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Meaning of Freedom in the Age of Revolutions (keynote)

    Summer Academy of Atlantic History, “Multiplicities of Freedom and Unfreedom in Atlantic Worlds"
    Wilberforce Institute for Study of Slavery, Hull, U.K.
    August
    2023
    Willem Klooster
  • Book

    荷兰海洋帝国的兴衰:17世纪大西洋世界的战争、贸易与殖民 

    2023
    Beijing
    China
    Willem Klooster
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    Economic Equality in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

    Published in New England Quarterly-A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters
    Fall
    2023
    Vol. 96
    Issue #3
    Willem Klooster
  • Reviews, Abstracts, Pamphlets

    Review of Giovanna Montenegro, German Conquistadors in Venezuela: The Welsers’ Colony, Racialized Capitalism, and Cultural Memory. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2022; and Eleonora Poggio, Comunidad, pertenencia, extranjería: El impacto de la migración laboral y mercantil de la región del Mar del Norte en Nueva España, 1550-1640. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. 

    Colonial Latin American Review
    Fall
    2023
    Vol. 32
    Issue #3
    Willem Klooster
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    Nonwhites and Brazilian Independence in Comparative Perspective — Não-brancos e a Independência do Brasil em perspectiva comparada.

    Published in Antíteses
    2022
    Vol. 15
    Issue #special issue
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    Entre Exclusif et contrebande. Les navigations commerciales aux Antilles 1600-1830
    Chapter: Le commerce intercolonial des mules.

    Published by L'Harmattan
    2022
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Mutual Constitution of the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish Empires in the Long Seventeenth Century.

    Ibero-Dutch Entanglements in the Seventeenth Century: Geopolitical Shifts in Global Perspective
    Purdue University
    March
    2022
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Rumors of Hope, Rumors of Fear in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

    University of Maine, Orono
    February
    2022
    Sponsored by University of Maine, Orono
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    Wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland II
    Chapter: 1654. Een suikerrevolutie in Frans West-Indië.

    Published by AmboAnthos
    2022
    Willem Klooster
  • Book

    Spanish American Independence Movements: A History in Documents

    Broadview Sources Series
    2021
    ISBN #9781554814565 / 1554814561
    Peterborough
    Canada
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Imperial Self-Image of a Nascent Nation: Dutch Brazil as the New Rome

    Nations & Empires
    Toulouse
    May
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Dutch Atlantic World at the Time of the First West India Company

    Roundtable Cultural Seminar
    New York City
    April
    2021
    Sponsored by Roundtable Cultural Seminar
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Jewish Involvement in the Age of Revolutions

    Atlantic Jewish Worlds
    Philadelphia
    April
    2021
    Sponsored by The McNeil Center for Early American Studies and the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Sons of Exile: The Atlantic History of the United Irishmen, 1791-1830

    NEH Book Workshop 2021
    Notre Dame, Indiana
    April
    2021
    Sponsored by Keough Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Petition to Keep New Netherland: Amsterdam’s Fear of English Ascendancy

    New Netherland Seminar
    Albany, NY
    December
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Smuggling and Slavery in the Dutch West Indies before 1800

    Lecture Series “From the City of Vlissingen to Nieuw Walcheren: The Dutch in the West Indies."
    Tobago
    December
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Amsterdam in the World, the World in Amsterdam in 1667.

    Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
    December
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Dutch as the New Romans: The Short-Lived Imperial Dream of the West India Company

    Symposium on New perspectives on the establishment and functioning of the West India Company 400 years ago
    The Hague, the Netherlands
    December
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Comparaison de la lutte pour l’égalité des droits des Juifs et des gens de couleur libres

    École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales – Condorcet, Paris
    November
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Rumors of Hope, Rumors of Fear: News that Moved People in the Age of Revolutions

    Centre d’études nord-américaines (CENA), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales – Condorcet, Paris
    November
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Biais et silences dans l’historiographie de l’âge des révolutions

    Institut d’Histoire de la Révolution française – Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine
    Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
    November
    2021
    Sponsored by Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Exiting the Asiento: Diplomacy and the Dutch Slave Trade during the War of the Spanish Succession

    International Conference “El Asiento y la trata transatlántica de africanos esclavizados (circa 1580-1750). Redes mercantiles y conectores transnacionales
    Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain
    November
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Représentation, démocratie et peur de la plèbe dans les régimes révolutionnaires

    École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales – Condorcet, Paris
    November
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    New Perspectives on Transatlantic Relations: Multidisciplinary Approaches
    Chapter: Making Comparisons in Atlantic History: Representation in the Age of Revolutions

    Published by Universitätsverlag Winter
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    As Américas na Primeira Modernidade (1492-1750)
    Chapter: Dimensões imperiais e inter-imperiais da América holandesa, 1590-1795

    Published by Editora Milfontes
    2021
    Willem Klooster
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    Silver and the Dutch Revolt: The Obsession with Spanish Silver in the 17th-Century Dutch Atlantic

    Published in The Sixteenth-Century Journal
    Spring
    2021
    Vol. 52
    Issue #1
    Willem Klooster
  • Reviews, Abstracts, Pamphlets

    Borderless Empire: Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750-1800

    Journal of American History
    Winter
    2021
    Vol. 107
    Issue #4
    Willem Klooster
  • Reviews, Abstracts, Pamphlets

    A Silver River in a Silver World: Dutch Trade in the Rio de la Plata, 1648-1678

    Renaissance Quarterly
    Fall
    2021
    Vol. 74
    Issue #4
    Willem Klooster
  • Chapters In Books

    De slavernij in Oost en West: Het Amsterdam-onderzoek
    Chapter: Amsterdam, de WIC en het Groot Desseyn

    Published by Het Unieboek/Spectrum
    2020
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Imperial Dimension of Dutch Brazil

    Revisiting Dutch Brazil
    Mauritshuis, The Hague, The Netherlands
    June
    2020
    Sponsored by Mauritshuis
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    The Petition to Keep New Netherland: Amsterdam’s Fear of English Ascendancy

    Low Countries History Seminar
    London
    November
    2020
    Sponsored by University College London
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Silver and the Dutch Revolt: The Obsession with Spanish Silver in the 17th-Century Dutch Atlantic

    Annual meeting of the American Historical Association
    New York City
    January
    2020
    Sponsored by American Historical Association
    Willem Klooster
  • Other Scholarly or Creative Work

    The Cost of Deprivation: Sailors in the Dutch Atlantic

    Willem Klooster
  • Other Scholarly or Creative Work

    The Gotham Center for New York History blog

    Willem Klooster
  • Article in Refereed Journal

    Comparative Perspectives on the Urban Black Atlantic on the Eve of Abolition

    Published in International Review of Social History
    spring
    2020
    Wim Klooster
  • Reviews, Abstracts, Pamphlets

    Spain and the American Revolution: New Approaches and Perspectives

    Hispanic American Historical Review
    Fall
    2020
    Vol. 100
    Issue #4
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Making Comparisons in Atlantic History: Representation in the Age of Revolutions

    New Perspectives on Transatlantic Relations: Multidisciplinary Approaches
    Munich, Germany
    July
    2019
    Sponsored by Bayerische Amerika-Akademie
    Willem Klooster
  • Reviews, Abstracts, Pamphlets

    Review of J. C. D. Clark, Thomas Paine: Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution

    American Historical Review
    June
    2019
    Vol. 124
    Issue #2
    Oxford University Press
  • Presentations

    Amsterdam’s Interest in New Netherland: The 1667 Petition to Keep the Colony

    Peter Gansevoort Ten Eyck Lecture
    Albany, N.Y.
    May
    2019
    Sponsored by New Netherland Institute
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Imperial and Inter-Imperial Aspects of the Early Dutch Slave Trade

    2019 Annual Brueghel Colloquium
    Philadelphia
    December
    2019
    Sponsored by University of Pennsylvania
    Willem Klooster
  • Presentations

    Opportunity and Geography in the Inter-Imperial Caribbean Mule Trade

    Entre Exclusif et contrebande, Le commerce maritime aux Antilles XVIIe -début XIXe siècle
    Fort-de-France, Martinique
    October
    2019
    Sponsored by Université des Antilles
    Willem Klooster