Dr Esther Mijers (PhD, FRHistS, FHEA)

Senior Lecturer in Scottish History

Biography

Background

I was born in Arnhem, the Netherlands and did my first degree at the University of Groningen (after a year in France at Rennes II), before moving to Scotland to do my PhD at the University of St Andrews. I loved it so much that I simply never went back home. From 2003 until 2006, I was a post-doc at Aberdeen, before my first appointment at the University of Reading. I joined the School of History, Classics and Archaeology in 2014.

My PhD and first book, on Scotland and the Netherlands, was an attempt to redraft the boundaries of the Scottish enlightenment both chronologically (going back into the 17th century) and geographically (to include Scotland’s relationship with Europe).

In Aberdeen, I worked on a project on the Scots in the 17th century Atlantic and I have been working on Atlantic history ever since. I dislike inward-looking Anglo-centric history and I firmly believe that 17th century Scotland and England were European nations.

My current research focuses on the relationship between Scotland and the wider world, on the one hand with Europe and their cultural, intellectual and educational connections, and on the other hand with the Americas, and the way Scotland and Scots negotiated Atlantic spaces as migrants, settlers and traders.

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • Member of the AHRC Peer Review College
  • Series editor Politics and Culture in Europe, 1650-1750 (Routledge)
  • Scotland Rep and Board Member Dutch Academic Network in the UK

Undergraduate teaching

Year 1:

  • Historians Toolkit
  • The History of Edinburgh: From Din Eidyn to Festival City
  • Early Modern History: A Connected World

Year 2:

  • Introduction to Historiography
  • Themes in Scottish History

Year 3:

  • Atlantic Encounters. Scotland and the North Atlantic World in the Seventeenth Century

Year 4:

  • The Dutch Miracle: The United Provinces in the Golden Age

Postgraduate teaching

MSc:

  • Theories of Empire
  • 'The Wisest Foll in Christendom': the Ideas and Writings of James VI & I

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective students with an interest in my research areas.

Current PhD students supervised

Name - Degree - Thesis topic - Supervision type - Link

  • Hannah Lytollis

Past PhD students supervised

  • Loughlin, Clare - PhD - Anti-Catholicism in Scottish polemic, 1689-1760 
  • Noble, Alastair - PhD - ‘That Barbarous Region’: Representations of the Highlands and the Construction of Scotland 1745-1760 
  • Weaver, Hannah - PhD -'Space, Place and Social Behaviour in Edinburgh 1760–1830'

Research summary

Places: 

  • Britain & Ireland
  • Europe
  • Scotland

Themes: 

  • Comparative & Global History
  • Culture
  • Ideas
  • Migration
  • Politics

Periods: 

  • Early Modern
  • Seventeenth Century
  • Eighteenth Century

Research interests

My research continues to develop in 2 related directions: the early modern history of Scottish universities/higher education/intellectual and cultural relations and the history of Scots in the 17th c Atlantic. Combined these come under the header of the history of Scotland and the Wider World in the 17th c.

Watch a short video of Dr Mijers speaking about  some of her research interests - Media Hopper

Current research interests

The Belmont Heritage Project This joint project with Dr Jonny Geber (Archaeology) is a collaboration with the Belmont Estate, Grenada. As a continuous working estate since the late seventeenth century, Belmont provides a microstudy of Grenada’s heritage, marked by the legacies of empire, slavery, and ongoing international conflict, and diverse communities. Now run as a social enterprise, Belmont plays an important socio-economic role locally. It is an interdisciplinary, community-led collaboration between History, Archaeology and the Belmont Foundation, Grenada, with the aim of uncovering, examining and archiving Belmont’s history, archaeology and heritage, in order to preserve its past, ensure local ownership and help foster a pathway to increased social justice and welfare. Globalising Veere: re-examining Scotland’s early modern trade hub in the Dutch Republic c. 1600 This project considers the Scottish Staple in the town of Veere in the Dutch Republic around 1600. Originally a market town for Scottish wool, Veere was Scotland’s most important and enduring trade hub abroad. Defined by its location in Zeeland, its fortunes were directly linked to the history of the Dutch Republic as much as to Scotland’s. As such it was not only central to the relationship between Scotland and the Continent, especially the Dutch Republic, but it was also a key node in an enduring and geographically extensive web of networks, spanning across Europe and into the Atlantic. From the Hanseatic trade in the Middle Ages to the colonial ventures in the Caribbean and North America during the First Age of Empire, Veere’s connections trace the history of Scotland’s overseas movements in microcosm. This project aims to examine and (re)conceptualise the Staple’s multiple functions, beyond its primary commercial purpose, at a fundamental moment in Scottish, Dutch and global history. Against the backdrop of state and imperial formation, Globalising Veere will uncover a centre for economic, political, intellectual, religious and social activities within a Northern Atlantic world and a catalyst for early modern transnational and global cooperation and competition between Scotland, the Dutch Republic and other European powers, as well as within the Dutch Republic.

Past research interests

William Carstares and the roots of Scottish moderatism

Project activity

The Belmont Heritage Project This joint project with Dr Jonny Geber (Archaeology) is a collaboration with the Belmont Estate, Grenada. As a continuous working estate since the late seventeenth century, Belmont provides a microstudy of Grenada’s heritage, marked by the legacies of empire, slavery, and ongoing international conflict, and diverse communities. Now run as a social enterprise, Belmont plays an important socio-economic role locally. It is an interdisciplinary, community-led collaboration between History, Archaeology and the Belmont Foundation, Grenada, with the aim of uncovering, examining and archiving Belmont’s history, archaeology and heritage, in order to preserve its past, ensure local ownership and help foster a pathway to increased social justice and welfare.

The list below is a subset of the information held on the University of Edinburgh PURE system, and includes Books, Chapters, Articles and Conference contributions. For a full list, including details of other publication types (e.g. reviews), please see the Edinburgh Research Explorer page for Dr Esther Mijers.

Books - Authored

Mijers, E. (2012) ?News from the Republick of Letters?: Scottish students, Charles Mackie and the United Provinces, 1650-1750. Leiden: Brill

Books - Edited

van Gelder, M. and Mijers, E. (eds.) (2009) Internationale Handelsnetwerken en Culturele Contacten in de Vroegmoderne Nederlanden. Aachen, Germany: Shaker Publishing

Mijers, E. and Onnekink, D. (eds.) (2007) Redefining William III: The Impact of the King-stadholder in International Context. Ashgate Publishing

Mijers, E. and Stiubhart, D. (eds.) (2005) Williamite Scotland. Maney Publishing

Articles

Mijers, E. (2020) ‘Holland and we were bot one in our cause’: The Covenanters’ ‘Dutch’ reception and impact. The Scottish Historical Review, 99(Supplement: 251), pp. 412-428DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/shr.2020.0489

Mijers, E. (2017) 'Addicted to Puritanism': Philosophical and theological relations between Scotland and the United Provinces in the first half of the seventeenth century. History of Universities, XXIX(2)DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198803621.003.0004

Mijers, E. (2013) Between empires and cultures: Scots in New Netherland and New York. Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 33(2), pp. 165-195

Mijers, E. (2010) Editorial of special issue. Dutch Crossing, 34(1), pp. 3-4

Mijers, E. (2006) Review of De Herontdekking van het Nederlandse Atlanticum. Transparant, 17(2), pp. 25-28

Mijers, E. (2005) 'For the cause of religion and [academic] liberty': connected political and academic networks in late 17th-century Utrecht. Dutch Crossing, 29(1), pp. 69-78

Mijers, E. (2005) Irish students in the Netherlands, 1650-1750. Archivium Hibernicum, 59, pp. 66-78

Mijers, E. (2005) The Scottish-Dutch context to the Blaeu Atlas: an overview. Scottish Geographical Journal, 121(3), pp. 311-320

Mijers, E. (2003) Minerva, Mars and Mercury. Scotto-Dutch intellectual exchange 1680-1730. Dutch Crossing, 26(2), pp. 197-211

Mijers, E. (2003) Uit Noodzaak, Wetenschappelijke Interesse en Curiositeit. Schotse Theologie Studenten in de Nederlandse Republiek. Transparant, 14(2), pp. 12-18

Chapters

Mijers, E. (2019) Displaced but not replaced: The continuation of Dutch intellectual influences in early Hanoverian Britain. In: Sirota, B. and Macinnes, A. (eds.) The Hanoverian Succession in Great Britain and its Empire. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, pp. 175-192DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787445468.010

Mijers, E. (2017) Scottish collectors and the Grand Tour. In: Warwick, G. (ed.) University of Edinburgh Torrie Collection 1836-2016.

Mijers, E. (2014) Scotland, the Dutch Republic and the Union: Commerce and cosmopolitanism. In: Macinnes, A. and Hamilton, D. (eds.) Jacobitism, Enlightenment and Empire, 1680–1820. London; Brookfield, Vt: Pickering & Chatto, pp. 93-109DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315654140

Mijers, E. and Murdoch, S. (2012) Migrant destinations, 1500-1750: The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History. In: Devine, T. and Wormald, J. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 320-338

Mijers, E. (2012) Scotland's fabulous past: Charles Mackie and George Buchanan: George Buchanan: Political Thought in Early Modern Britain and Europe. In: Mason, R. and Erskine, C. (eds.) George Buchanan: Political Thought in Early Modern Britain and Europe. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 249-268

Mijers, E. (2011) Intellectual exchanges and Scottish authors abroad: the Scottish-Dutch trade: The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 2: Enlightenment and Expansion 1707-1800. In: Brown, S. and McDougall, W. (eds.) The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 2: Enlightenment and Expansion 1707-1800. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 203-209

Mijers, E. (2011) The Netherlands, William Carstares, and the reform of Edinburgh University, 1690-1715: History of Universities. Volume XXV/2. In: Feingold, M. (ed.) History of Universities. Volume XXV/2. UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 111-142

Mijers, E. and Onnekink, D. (2007) Introduction: Redefining William III: the impact of the King-Stadholder in international context. In: Mijers, E. and Onnekink, D. (eds.) Redefining William III: the impact of the King-Stadholder in international context. UK: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 1-14

Mijers, E. (2006) A natural partnership? Scotland and Zeeland in the early seventeenth century: Shaping the Stuart world, 1603-1714 : the Atlantic connection. In: Macinnes, A. and Williamson, A. (eds.) Shaping the Stuart world, 1603-1714 : the Atlantic connection. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 233-260

Mijers, E. (2005) Scottish students in the Netherlands 1680-1730: Scottish communities abroad in the early modern period. In: Grosjean, A. and Murdoch, S. (eds.) Scottish communities abroad in the early modern period. Leiden: Brill, pp. 301-331

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