One of the central themes of the history of the last five hundred years is the phenomenon currently referred to as the process of globalisation. In this process, a central role has been played in the past by the phenomenon of Western European expansion, the various ways in which other continents responded to this and the developments resulting from this expansion. Globalisation means the emergence of a world economy, worldwide migration flows, the birth of nation states and many other phenomena. Central to this history are the early activities of the chartered trading companies, the rise of colonial empires and enterprises, resistance movements, wars of independence and decolonization, all of which have left us their archives whose unique character stems from the interaction between expanding and contracting Europe and the rest of the world. It is therefore no coincidence that this history has its own historiography and its own journals. Owing to the rich economic, anthropological and political data they contain, ‘colonial’ archives are also of inestimable value in the study of the autochthonous history of non-Western areas, as demonstrated by the success of the TANAP and ENCOMPASS projects which the history department of Leiden University is presently carrying out in close cooperation with academic institutions in Asia and South Africa. The scholarly and societal importance of studying the history of European expansion and global interaction cannot be overemphasized.

The history department plays an important role in the study of global history. As early as 1902, Leiden University offered lectures on ‘colonial history’, but from the 1950s onwards turned towards ‘global history’. This concept should not be understood in the sense of the comparative method, but as an approach which focuses on the study of emerging global connections in history. As the American historian Patrick Manning put it: ‘Connection conveys the character of world historical analysis better than any other term. It acknowledges locality and uniqueness, yet also invokes broad patterns’. (Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past 2003).

In this context, the history department of Leiden University centers on the study of global interaction processes making use of the wide range of primary sources available in the broad environment of the university. Leiden possesses in this respect a unique infrastructure for the use of both primary and secondary source materials. Not only are the rich archives of the VOC, the WIC and the former Ministry of Colonies in the National Archives in The Hague located at a fifteen minutes distance by public rail system from Leiden, but the Leiden University Library also houses the entire library collection of the former Ministry of Colonies, while the KITLV and Africa Institute have world famous collections on Caribbean, Southeast Asian and African history. In addition, Leiden is home to other libraries and instances which are involved in the study of the world outside Europe and which belong to the largest in their fields in Europe.

The Leiden MA and MPhil programmes offer students from within and outside the Netherlands thorough training in the use of these primary sources while they are carrying out their research. A follow-on PhD track is also offered, with a clearly recognisable individual character. In this way, the history department has created a niche for itself in the field of global history focusing on the search for connections and the origins of the migration and transfer of people, beliefs, goods and ideas within and among the continents.