Pieter Spierenburg’s Contribution to the History of Confinement in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

Pieter Spierenburg’s contribution to the history of confinement in early modern Europe can only be adequately assessed if one views his work in the context of his creation. His first study, a history of imprisonment in Amsterdam, was published in 1982. These years were the heyday of the so-called “revisionist historiography”. This concept was promoted by historians, sociologists, and philosophers — such as Michel Foucault and Michelle Perrot in France; David J. Rothman in the United States; a...