This book presents a collection of philosophical essays on freedom and tolerance in the Netherlands. It explores liberal freedom and its limits in areas such as freedom of speech, public reason, sexual morality, euthanasia, drugs policy, and minority rights. The book takes Dutch practices as exemplary test cases for the principled discussions on these subjects from the perspective of political liberalism. Indeed, the Netherlands may be viewed as a social laboratory in human tolerance. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, Holland took the lead in a global emancipation process towards a society based on equal freedom. It was the first country to legalize euthanasia, soft drugs and gay marriage. In the final sections, the book examines the question of whether the political murders on the politician Pim Fortuyn and the film director Theo van Gogh, the reactions to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s film Submission, as well as the success of the populist politician Geert Wilders are signs of the end of Dutch tolerance. Although it recognizes that the political climate has taken a conservative turn, the book shows that the Netherlands still shows remarkable tolerance.

Over the last century and a half, manners and formalities in the West have become less status-ridden, stiff and rigid. Debates around Norbert Elias’ theory of civilising processes gave rise to questions of a change in direction of these patterns. The concept of informalisation, which describes these transformations, was first used to analyse the tumultuous changes of the 1960s and 1970s. This increasing informality, leniency and flexibility, comes hand-in-hand with a growing demand on individuals to self-regulate their emotions. This book will stimulate debate around the changes in the standards of manners and emotion regulation, and will generate new avenues of enquiry that focus on issues involving informalisation. The chapters shed light on a variety of such moral and political issues over the last 150 years, offering a new and broader scope on the present social condition of humanity. Civilisation and Informalisation will be an important addition for students and scholars of figurational process sociology, and of broader interest to academics across sociology, social psychology and social history.

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Advertising is an essential guide to the crucial role that music plays in relation to the audio or audiovisual advertising message, from the perspectives of its creation, interpretation, and reception. The book's unique three-part organization reflects this life cycle of an advertisement, from industry inception to mass-mediated text to consumer behaviour. Experts well versed in the practice, analysis, and empirical studies of the commercial message have contributed to the collection's forty-two chapters, which collectively represent the most ambitious and comprehensive attempt to date to address the important intersections of music and advertising. Handbook chapters are self-contained yet share borders with other contributions within a given section and across the major sections of the book, so readers can either study one topic of particular interest or read through to gain an understanding of the broader issues at stake. Within the book's Introduction, each editor has provided an overview of the unifying themes for the section for which they were responsible, with brief summaries of individual contributions at the beginnings of the sections. The lists of recommended readings at the end of chapters are intended to assist readers in finding further literature about the topic. An overview of industry practices by a music insider is provided in the Appendix, giving context for the three parts of the book.

Dutch society has enjoyed a reputation, or notoriety, for permissiveness from the sixteenth century to present times. The Dutch Republic in the Golden Age was the only society that tolerated religious dissenters of all persuasions in early modern Europe, despite being committed to a strictly Calvinist public Church. Professors R. Po-chia Hsia and Henk van Nierop have brought together a group of leading historians from the US, the UK and the Netherlands to probe the history and myth of this Dutch tradition of religious tolerance. This 2002 collection of outstanding essays reconsiders and revises contemporary views of Dutch tolerance. Taken as a whole, the volume's innovative scholarship offers unexpected insights into this important topic in religious and cultural history.

In a period of two decades Dutch drug policy has evolved in partial opposition to the internationally dominant ideology of prohibitionism. The "normalizing" home policy, together with the compliance to law enforcement in the international arena, make up a rather complicated and ambivalent Dutch position in drug policy. The Dutch drug policy is fully in line with the international control practices against wholesale drug trafficking. In regards to its social drug policy, however, it has become a rare dissenter within an increasingly unifying and compelling international drug policy context. This book gives an account of the national Dutch drug control strategy.

Reformation and the Practice of Toleration examines the remarkable religious toleration that characterized Dutch society in the early modern era. It shows how this toleration originated, how it functioned, and how people of different faiths interacted, especially in 'mixed' marriages.

The settlers of New Netherland were obligated to uphold religious toleration as a legal right by the Dutch Republic's founding document, the 1579 Union of Utrecht, which stated that "everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion." For early American historians this statement, unique in the world at its time, lies at the root of American pluralism. New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty offers a new reading of the way tolerance operated in colonial America. Using sources in several languages and looking at laws and ideas as well as their enforcement and resistance, Evan Haefeli shows that, although tolerance as a general principle was respected in the colony, there was a pronounced struggle against it in practice. Crucial to the fate of New Netherland were the changing religious and political dynamics within the English empire. In the end, Haefeli argues, the most crucial factor in laying the groundwork for religious tolerance in colonial America was less what the Dutch did than their loss of the region to the English at a moment when the English were unusually open to religious tolerance. This legacy, often overlooked, turns out to be critical to the history of American religious diversity. By setting Dutch America within its broader imperial context, New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of a conflict integral to the histories of the Dutch republic, early America, and religious tolerance.

Bike cobblestone streets, cruise on charming canals, and stop and smell the tulips: experience the Netherlands with Rick Steves! Inside Rick Steves Amsterdam & the Netherlands you'll find: Comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring Amsterdam and the Netherlands Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites Top sights and hidden gems, from the Van Gogh museum and Rembrandt's home workshop, to cozy "brown" cafés How to connect with local culture: Explore Amsterdam by bicycle, sample distinctive Dutch cheeses, and chat with a friendly local over beer brewed from 1,000-year-old recipes Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight The best places to eat, sleep, and relax over a pint Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and incredible museums Detailed maps for exploring on the go Useful resources including a packing list, a Dutch phrase book, a historical overview, and recommended reading Over 500 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you down Complete, up-to-date information on Amsterdam, Haarlem, Delft, Alkmaar and Zaanse Schans, Edam, Volendam, Marken, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, the Historic Triangle, Flevoland, Keukenhof, Aalsmeer, Leiden, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Arnhem, and more Make the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves Amsterdam & the Netherlands. Spending less than a week in Amsterdam? Try Rick Steves Pocket Amsterdam.

The diaspora of Portuguese Jews and New Christians, known as Gente da Nação (People of the Nation), is considered the largest European diaspora of the early modern period. Portuguese Jews not only founded the first congregations and synagogues in Brazil (Recife and Olinda), but when they left Brazil they played an imperative role in establishing the first Jewish communities in Suriname, throughout the Caribbean, and in North America. Portuguese Jews and New Christians and their descendants were deeply involved in the colonial enterprise in Brazil. They were among the New World’s first sugarcane-industry experts, skilled laborers, merchants, rabbis, calligraphists, playwrights, poets, writers, pharmacists, medical doctors, real estate brokers, and geographers—a fact that remains largely unknown in most public and academic spheres. Drawing on nearly twenty thousand digitized dossiers of the Portuguese Inquisition, this volume offers a comprehensive, critical overview informed by both relatively inaccessible secondary sources and a significant body of primary sources.

Identity and Participation in Culturally Diverse Societies presents an original discussion in an edited volume of how the links between identity, political participation, radicalization, and integration can provide a scientific understanding of the complex issue of coexistence between groups in culturally diverse societies. Offers a scientific understanding of the complex issue of coexistence between groups in culturally diverse societies Utilizes original theory which combines social psychology, sociology, and political science Includes an original and extensive discussion of combining the concepts of identity and diversity Innovatively and engagingly employs the latest research and state-of-the-art theory