Associate Professor Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication Department of History
- Location
- Burg. Oudlaan 50, Rotterdam
- curtis@eshcc.eur.nl
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Profile
I have a new project funded by the NWO VIDI (800,000 euro), which goes by the title "Positively Shocking! The Redistributive Impact of Mass Mortality through Epidemic Diseases and Violent Conflict in Early Modern Northwest Europe". It looks to test recent arguments that catastrophic shocks such as violent conflict and epidemic diseases were the only times throughout history when societies became more equitable - in particular by trying to obtain much more systematic empirical evidence for the pre-industrial period. It is my contention that there were a number of societal and epidemiological conditions that allowed the direction of redistribution to deviate from this suggested pattern.
I am happy to hear from any prospective students (BA/MA/PhD) interested in the broad domain of environmental hazards, famines and diseases in the past, and their implications for social and economic development over the long term.
- D.R. Curtis (2021). From One Mortality Regime to Another? Mortality Crises in Late Medieval Haarlem, Holland, in Perspective. Speculum, 96 (1), 127-155. doi: 10.1086/711641
- D.R. Curtis & Q. Han (2021). The Female Mortality Advantage in the Seventeenth‐Century Rural Low Countries. Gender & History, 33 (1), 50-74. doi: 10.1111/1468-0424.12495
- D.R. Curtis (2021). The Female Experience of Epidemics in the Early Modern Low Countries. Dutch Crossing: A Journal for Students of Dutch in Britain, 45 (1), 3-20. doi: 10.1080/03096564.2020.1840134
- B.F.M. Hilkens, B. van Besouw & D.R. Curtis (2020). A Modern Rendition of a Pre-modern Scenario: Imperfect Institutions and Obscured Vulnerabilities. Journal for the History of Environment and Society, 5 (1), 211-221. doi: 10.1484/J.JHES.5.122476
- Q. Han & D.R. Curtis (2020). Social Responses to Epidemics Depicted by Cinema. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 26 (2), 389-394. doi: 10.3201/eid2602.181022 [go to publisher's site]
- Q. Han & D.R. Curtis (2020). Suspicious minds: cinematic depiction of distrust during epidemic disease outbreaks. BMJ Medical Humanities. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2020-011871
- B. van Bavel, D.R. Curtis, M. Hannaford, M. Moatsos, J. Roosen & T. Soens (2019). Climate and society in long-term perspective: Opportunities and pitfalls in the use of historical datasets. WIREs Climate Change, 10 (6), 1-18. doi: 10.1002/wcc.611 [go to publisher's site]
- J. Roosen & D.R. Curtis (2019). The Light Touch of the Black Death in the Southern Netherlands: An Urban Trick? The Economic History Review, 72 (1), 32-56. doi: 10.1111/ehr.12667 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis & J. Roosen (2018). On the importance of history: response to Black as Death. Inference : International Review of Science, 4 (2). [go to publisher's site]
- J. Roosen & D.R. Curtis (2018). Dangers of Noncritical Use of Historical Plague Databases. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 24 (1), 103-110. doi: 10.3201/eid2401.170477 [go to publisher's site]
- B. van Bavel, D.R. Curtis & T. Soens (2018). Economic inequality and institutional adaptation in response to flood hazards: a historical analysis. Ecology and Society, 23 (4):30. doi: 10.5751/ES-10491-230430 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis & J. Roosen (2017). The Sex-Selective Impact of the Black Death and Recurring Plagues in the Southern Netherlands, 1349-1450. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 164 (2), 246-259. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.23266 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis & J. Dijkman (2017). The escape from famine in the Northern Netherlands: a reconsideration using the 1690s harvest failures and a broader Northwest European perspective. The seventeenth century. doi: 10.1080/0268117X.2017.1410494 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis (2016). Did the Commons Make Medieval and Early Modern Rural Societies More Equitable? A Survey of Evidence from across Western Europe, 1300-1800. Journal of Agrarian Change, 16 (4), 646-664. doi: 10.1111/joac.12101 [go to publisher's site]
- B. van Bavel & D.R. Curtis (2016). Better Understanding Disasters by Better Using History: Systematically Using the Historical Record as One Way to Advance Research into Disasters. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 34 (1), 143-169. [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis (2016). Danger and Displacement in the Dollard: The 1509 Flooding of the Dollard Sea (Groningen) and its Impact on Long-Term Inequality in the Distribution of Property. Environment and History, 22 (1), 103-135. doi: 10.3197/096734016X14497391602288 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis (2016). Was Plague An Exclusively Urban Phenomenon? Plague Mortality between City and Countryside in the 17th-Century Low Countries. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 47 (2), 139-170. doi: 10.1162/JINH_a_00975
- D.R. Curtis, B. van Bavel & T. Soens (2016). History and the Social Sciences: Shock Therapy with Medieval Economic History as the Patient. Social Science History, 40 (4), 751-774. doi: 10.1017/ssh.2016.30 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis (2015). An Agro-Town Bias? Re-Examining the Micro-Demographic Model for Southern Italy in the Eighteenth Century. Journal of Social History, 48 (3), 685-713. doi: 10.1093/jsh/shu149
- D.R. Curtis (2014). The Effects of Land Accumulation and Consolidation on Population Trends in the Pre-Industrial Period: Two Contrasting Cases in the Low Countries. Historical Research, 87 (236), 194-228. doi: 10.1111/1468-2281.12050
- D.R. Curtis & M. Campopiano (2014). Medieval Land Reclamation and the Creation of New Societies. Comparing Holland and the Po Valley, 800-1500. Journal of Historical Geography, 44, 93-108. doi: 10.1016/j.jhg.2013.10.004
- D.R. Curtis (2013). The Emergence of Concentrated Villages in Medieval Western Europe: Explanatory Frameworks in the Historiography. Canadian Journal of History, 48 (2), 223-251. doi: 10.3138/cjh.48.2.223
- D.R. Curtis (2013). Trends in Rural Social and Economic History of the Pre-Industrial Low Countries: Recent Themes and Ideas in Journals and Books of the Past Five Years (2007-2013). Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (online), 128 (3), 60-95. doi: 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.9204 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis (2013). Tine De Moor’s ‘Silent Revolution’. Reconsider her Theoretical Framework for Explaining the Emergence of Institutions for the Collective Management of Resources. International Journal of the Commons, 7 (1), 209-229. doi: 10.18352/ijc.354 [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis (2013). Is there an Agro-Town Model for Southern Italy? Exploring the Diverse Roots and Development of the Agro-Town Structure through a Comparative Case Study in Apulia. Continuity & Change, 28 (3), 377-419. doi: 10.1017/S0268416013000362
- D.R. Curtis (2012). Florence and its Hinterlands in the Late Middle Ages: Contrasting Fortunes in the Tuscan Countryside, 1300-1500. Journal of Medieval History, 38 (4), 472-499. doi: 10.1080/03044181.2012.719830
- B. van Bavel, D.R. Curtis, J. Dijkman, M. Hannaford, M. De Keyzer, E. Van Onacker & T. Soens (2020). Disasters and History: The Vulnerability and Resilience of Past Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press doi: 10.1017/9781108569743
- D.R. Curtis (2014). Coping with Crisis: The Resilience and Vulnerability of Pre-Industrial Settlements. (Rural Worlds: Economic, Social & Cultural Histories of Agricultures & Rural Societies). London: Routledge [go to publisher's site]
- D.R. Curtis (2020). All equal in the presence of death? Epidemics and redistribution in the pre-industrial period. In G Alfani & E Thoen (Eds.), Inequality in Rural Europe (Late Middle Ages - 18th Century) (CORN Publication Series, 18) (pp. 123-142). Turnhout: Brepols
- D.R. Curtis (2020). Preserving the Ordinary: Social Resistance during the Second Pandemic Plagues in the Low Countries. In C Gerrard, P Forlin & PJ Brown (Eds.), Waiting for the End of the World? New Perspectives on Natural Disasters in Medieval Europe (Society for Medieval Archaeology, 43) (pp. 280-297). London: Routledge doi: 10.4324/9781003023449-18
- D.R. Curtis, J. Dijkman, T. Lambrecht & E. Vanhaute (2017). The Low Countries. In G. Alfani & C. Ó Gráda (Eds.), Famines in European history (pp. 119-140). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [go to publisher's site] doi: 10.1017/9781316841235.006
- D.R. Curtis (2016). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Crises in Economic and Social History: a Comparative Perspective]. Continuity and Change, 31(3), 421-423. doi: 10.1017/S0268416016000291
- D.R. Curtis (2014). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Landscapes or Seascapes? The History of the Coastal Environment in the North Sea Area Reconsidered]. The Medieval Low Countries, 1(1), 284-287. doi: 10.1484/J.MLC.5.103719
- D.R. Curtis (2014). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Food supply, demand and trade: aspects of the economic relationship between town and countryside (middle ages–19th century)]. The Economic History Review, 67(2), 597-598. doi: 10.1111/1468-0289.12067_16
- D.R. Curtis (2019). The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560–1720. [Bespreking van het boek The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560–1720]. American Historical Review, 124(2), 602-605. doi: 10.1093/ahr/rhz236
- D.R. Curtis (2015). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Commerce and the Countryside. The Rural Population's Involvement int the Commodity Market in Flanders, 1750-1910]. Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, 45(4), 136-139.
- D.R. Curtis (2015). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Beyond Lords and Peasants: Rural Elites and Economic Differentiation in Pre-Modern Europe]. Scripta : Revista Internacional de Literatura i Cultura Medieval i Moderna, 5(1), 327-330.
- D.R. Curtis (2015). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Landlords and tenants in Britain, 1440-1660: Tawney's Agrarian Problem revisited]. Historia Agraria, 65(1), 201-204.
- D.R. Curtis (2014). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Property Rights, Land Markets and Economic Growth in the European Countryside (Thirteenth–Twentieth Centuries)]. Landscape History, 35(1), 102-103. doi: 10.1080/01433768.2014.916917
- D.R. Curtis (2013). Book review. [Bespreking van het boek Working on Labor: Essays in Honor of Jan Lucassen]. Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (online), 128(4), 98-100. doi: 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.9311
- D.R. Curtis & B. van Besouw (2020, april 14). Not Learning from History. Learning from COVID-19. . Retrieved Jun 22, 2020, from https://repub.eur.nl/pub/126243/
- D.R. Curtis (2021, januari 14). From One Mortality Regime to Another? Mortality Crises in Late Medieval Haarlem, Holland, in Perspective. Webinar, Speculum Webinar on “Disease, Death, and Therapy".
- D.R. Curtis (2020, oktober 30). Preserving the Ordinary in the Age of the Second Plague Pandemic. Boerhaave Museum, Leiden, Salon Boerhaave Lecture Series, "Besmet! exhibition".
- D.R. Curtis (2020). Epidemics in Movies. (podcast). CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). (available: 30 Mar 2020).
- D.R. Curtis & B. van Besouw (2020). Not Learning from History. Learning from COVID-19. (blog). Wiley: COVID-19 Resources for the Research Community. (available: 14 Apr 2020).
- D.R. Curtis (Interview) (2020, mrt 17). Hollywood pandemics. [radio-uitzending]. In The Current. Toronto, Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current. https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/15766101-bill-blair-on-covid-19-and-travel-restrictions-ordinary-canadians-helping-those-hardest-hit-protecting-your-mental-health-hollywood-pandemics
Internship History
- Title
- Internship History
- Year
- 2020
- Year level
- BA-3, BA-3
Epidemic Disease, Famine and Development
- Title
- Epidemic Disease, Famine and Development
- Year
- 2020
- Year level
- BA-2, BA-2
History of Early Modern Societies
- Title
- History of Early Modern Societies
- Year
- 2020
- Year level
- BA-1, BA-1
Associate Professor
- University
- Erasmus University Rotterdam
- School
- Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication
- Department
- Department of History
- Country
- The Netherlands