Professor Ben Kaplan
Professor in Early Modern Europe
Ben Kaplan holds UCL’s Chair in Dutch History, which dates back to 1919 and reflects the close historical ties between Britain, especially London, and the Low Countries (Holland and Belgium). Although Ben fills this role, he has a broad international and comparative perspective, and his research ranges across much of early modern Europe, focusing particularly on its religious history. Most of his research is on the history of religious toleration and conflict in Europe after the Reformations. Ben is interested less in ideas than in the practice of toleration: how, in a very religious era, groups who in theory were bitter enemies managed in Holland and other parts of Europe to live together peacefully - and when the peace between them broke down, he wants to know why. Though these questions are historical, Ben believes they have great relevance to our world today. In search of answers, he studies the nitty-gritty practicalities of life in religiously mixed communities, like how worship by different groups was accommodated in places with just one church building. He wants to know whether people of different faiths attended the same schools, shared charitable resources, or wore similar clothing. Did they intermarry? How were disputes handled? It’s surprising how little we actually know about such things.
PhD supervision
Ben is interested in receiving research proposals from prospective students on any aspect of early modern European religious history.
Recently completed: Anastazja Grudnicka, ‘Being a Catholic in the House of Austria: The Religious Formation of Matthias habsburg, 1557-1612’
Major publications
- Benjamin Kaplan and Jaap Geraerts, eds., Early Modern Toleration: New Approaches. Abingdon: Routledge, 2024.
- Reformation and the Practice of Toleration: Dutch Religious History in the Early Modern Era (Leiden: Brill, 2019)
- Religious Interactions in Europe and the Mediterranean World: Coexistence and Dialogue from the 12th to the 20th Centuries, co-edited with Katsumi Fukasawa and Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017.
- Cunegonde’s Kidnapping: A Story of Religious Conflict in the Age of Enlightenment. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2014.
- Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands, 1580-1720, co-edited with Robert Moore, Henk van Nierop, and Judith Pollman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.
- Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 2007.
For a full list of publications, see Ben’s Iris profile.
Grants/projects
Ben has held research fellowships and grants from a variety of institutions, including the Guggenheim Foundation, Leverhulme Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Media appearances
- ‘On Crossing the Religious Divide’, BBC Radio 4, broadcast 28 July 2019
- ‘The Invention of the Netherlands’, BBC Radio 4, episode 2 ‘The Golden Age’, 2018
- ‘The Legal Rights of Religious Refugees in the Exulantenstädte’, MPI MMG Open Lectures, 13 July 2017
- ‘Cunegonde’s Kidnapping’, Boeken met Wim Brands, 2 November 2014
Teaching
Contact information
Email: b.kaplan@ucl.ac.uk
Telephone: 020 7679 1338
Office: 114, 26 Gordon Square
Student support & feedback hours: Wednesdays 11-1pm. Book here.
Student support & feedback hours are an opportunity for students to chat with their module tutors about their ideas, any support they might need with the module, and to go through feedback from their assessments.
Departmental roles
- Director of MA Programmes
- Co-Chair, Consultative and Teaching Committee
- Member, Education Leadership Team
External roles
- Co-Convenor, Low Countries seminar at the IHR
- IHR Library Committee
- Editorial board, Dutch Crossing and Studies in Early Modernity in the Netherlands
- Advisory board, Church History and Religious Culture, Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, and H-Low Countries
- Committee of Honour, the Dutch Centre, London
Qualifications
PhD Harvard, 1989