Engineer Johan van Veen is widely regarded as the “father” of the Dutch Delta Works, a series of sea defence structures which protect parts of the Netherlands against storm surges. When the construction started, the plans were unprecedented in scale and wagered on technologies that were not yet invented. Nonetheless, this article shows that Van Veen defended his daring, innovative, and expensive megaproject by telling a narrative about 24 centuries of national, Dutch history. Drawing inspiration from the Narrative Policy Framework developed by policy researchers, it analyses Van Veen’s English-language book Dredge, Drain, Reclaim (1948–1962). Here, the engineer created a plot in which the Delta Works were the logical climax of Dutch history.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Algemeen Handelsblad. ‘Op de boekenplank: Onze strijd van eeuwen’. 3 February 1949.
Ashplant, T. G., and Adrian Wilson. ‘Present-Centred History and the Problem of Historical Knowledge’. The Historical Journal 31, no. 2 (1988): 253–74. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X00012875.
Aten, Diederik. ‘Drijven of drooghouden?: Inundatie als landbouwmethode in Hollands Noorderkwartier, zestiende-negentiende eeuw’. Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 19, no. 1 (2010): 1–14.
Berkers, Eric. ‘Innovatie: Ervaring en vernieuwing bij de bouw van de Deltawerken’. In Modern wereldwonder: Geschiedenis van de Deltawerken, edited by Bert Toussaint and Willem van der Ham, 189–259. Amsterdam: Boom, 2018.
Beyen, Marnix. ‘Een gezond oorlogskind: Parlementaire discussies over de afsluiting en de drooglegging van de Zuiderzee, 1918’. In ‘Getemd maar rusteloos’: De Zuiderzee verbeeld: Een multidisciplinair onderzoek, edited by Tom Sintobin, 73–89. Hilversum: Verloren, 2008.
Blackbourn, David. The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006.
Brice, Catherine. ‘Building Nations, Transforming Landscape’. Contemporary European History 16, no. 1 (2007): 109–19.
Brooks, Peter. Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Buuren, J.E. van. Leerboek der geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche volk. 2nd rev. ed. Wageningen: Gebr. Zomer & Keuning, 1921.
Cools, R. H. A. Strijd om den grond in het lage Nederland: Het proces van bedijking, inpoldering en droogmaking sinds de vroegste tijden. Rotterdam; The Hague: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 1948.
Cruyningen, Piet van. ‘Dealing with Drainage: State Regulation of Drainage Projects in the Dutch Republic, France, and England during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’. The Economic History Review 68, no. 2 (2015): 420–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12082.
Dam, Petra van. De amfibische cultuur: Een visie op watersnoodrampen. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2010. https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/de-amfibische-cultuur-een-visie-op-watersnoodrampen.
Dam, Petra van. ‘Water en land’. bmgn– Low Countries Historical Review 124, no. 3 (2009): 459–66. https://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.7017.
Daniels, Stephen. Fields of Vision: Landscape Imagery and National Identity in England and the United States. Cambridge: Polity, 1993.
De Groene Amsterdammer. ‘De kunst van een land’. 12 March 1949.
Dibbits, Herman. Nederland-Waterland: Een historisch-technisch overzicht. Utrecht: Oosthoek’s Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1950.
Duiveman, Adriaan. ‘Demilitariseer de polder: Oorlogsmetaforiek, geschiedschrijving en de toekomst van de Nederlandse delta’. In Welke verhalen vertellen we? Narratieve strategieën rondom waterbeheer en zeespiegelstijging, edited by Lotte Jensen and Adriaan Duiveman, 38–47. Nijmegen: Radboud Universiteit, 2020. https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/handle/2066/224832.
Duiveman, Adriaan. ‘Heeft de heroïek van onze strijd tegen het water zijn langste tijd gehad?: Nederlanders zijn trots op hun historische “strijd tegen het water”. Maar werkt dit nationale verhaal nog wel in de klimaatcrisis?’ De Groene Amsterdammer (blog), 4 March 2022. https://www.groene.nl/artikel/helden-onder-de-zeespiegel.
Duiveman, Adriaan. ‘Vloeibare grenzen’. Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden, 2022, 21–26.
Ensel, Remco. ‘Nation-Building Behind the Dike: Dutch Nationalism and the Visual Culture of Hydraulic Engineering’. Dutch Crossing 43, no. 2 (2019): 177–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/03096564.2017.1305236.
Fischer, Frederik Hendrik. Historie en cultuur van het Nederlandsche volk: Proeve van een moderne geschiedsopvatting. Amsterdam: De Spieghel, 1934. https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=MMKB05:000035740:00007.
Gray, Summer. In the Shadow of the Seawall: Coastal Injustice and the Dilemma of Placekeeping. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2023.
Haan, Hilde de, and Ids Haagsma. De Deltawerken: Techniek, politiek, achtergronden. Delft: Waltman, 1984.
Ham, Willem van der. Heersen en beheersen: Rijkswaterstaat in de twintigste eeuw. Zaltbommel: Europese Bibliotheek, 1999.
Ham, Willem van der. ‘De Deltawerken als Nederlands icoon’. In Modern wereldwonder: Geschiedenis van de Deltawerken, edited by Bert Toussaint and Willem van der Ham, 372–95. Amsterdam: Boom, 2018.
Ham, Willem van der. ‘Het Deltaplan: Nieuwe bescherming voor een kwetsbaar land’. In Modern wereldwonder: Geschiedenis van de Deltawerken, edited by Bert Toussaint and Willem van der Ham, 22–121. Amsterdam: Boom, 2018.
Ham, Willem van der. Johan van Veen, meester van de zee: Grondlegger van het Deltaplan. Rev. ed. Amsterdam: Boom, 2020.
Heerikhuizen, Bart van. ‘Sociologen in de jaren dertig en veertig over het Nederlandse volkskarakter’. Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift 6 (1980): 643–75.
Jensen, Lotte. ‘De strijd tegen het water in woord en beeld: Verbindingen tussen heden en verleden’. In Welke verhalen vertellen we? Narratieve strategieën rondom waterbeheer en zeespiegelstijging, edited by Lotte Jensen and Adriaan Duiveman, 6–13. Nijmegen: Radboud Universiteit, 2020.
Jensen, Lotte. Water: A Dutch Cultural History. Translated by Nancy Forest-Flier. Nijmegen: Radboud University Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.54195/ASQH4249.
Jensen, Lotte, and Vincent Hunink. ‘De waterwolf en de Hollandse leeuw. Drie zeventiende-eeuwse gedichten over de drooglegging van het Haarlemmermeer’. Accolade 39 (2021): 108–21.
Johnson, Nuala C. ‘From Time Immemorial: Narratives of Nationhood and the Making of National Space’. In TimeSpace: Geographies of Temporality, edited by John May and Nigel Thrift, 89–105. London: New York: Routledge, 2001.
Jones, Michael D., and Mark K. McBeth. ‘A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear Enough to Be Wrong?’ Policy Studies Journal 38, no. 2 (2010): 329–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2010.00364.x.
Jones, Michael D., Mark K. McBeth, and Elizabeth A. Shanahan. ‘Introducing the Narrative Policy Framework’. In The Science of Stories: Applications of the Narrative Policy Framework in Public Policy Analysis, edited by Michael D. Jones, Elizabeth A. Shanahan, and Mark K. McBeth, 1–25. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137485861_1.
Keuning, H. J. Het Nederlandsche volk in zijn woongebied: Hoofdlijnen van een economische en sociale geografie van Nederland. The Hague: H.P. Leopolds Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1947.
Lekan, Thomas M. Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity, 1885–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Lemon, Michael C. ‘The Structure of Narrative’. In The Discipline of History and the History of Thought, 42–79. London: New York: Routledge, 1995.
Liu, James H., and Denis J. Hilton. ‘How the Past Weighs on the Present: Social Representations of History and Their Role in Identity Politics’. The British Journal of Social Psychology 44, no. 4 (2005): 537–56. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466605X27162.
Löfgren, Orvar. ‘The Nationalization of Culture’. Ethnologia Europaea 19, no. 1 (1989). https://doi.org/10.16995/ee.1386.
Lowenthal, David. ‘British National Identity and the English Landscape’. Rural History 2, no. 2 (1991): 205–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956793300002764.
Mayer, Frederick W. Narrative Politics: Stories and Collective Action. Oxford University Press, 2014.
McBeth, Mark K., Elizabeth A. Shanahan, Molly C. Arrandale Anderson, and Barbara Rose. ‘Policy Story or Gory Story? Narrative Policy Framework Analysis of Buffalo Field Campaign’s YouTube Videos’. Policy & Internet 4, no. 3–4 (2012): 159–83. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.15.
Meyer, Han. The State of the Delta: Engineering, Urban Development and Nation Building in the Netherlands. Nijmegen: Vantilt Publishers, 2017.
Munslow, Alun. Narrative and History. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.
Post, Anna-Luna. ‘Failure to Drain: Expert Resistance and Environmental Thought in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic.’ Past & Present, in press.
Readman, Paul. Storied Ground: Landscape and the Shaping of English National Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108344043.
Renan, Ernest. ‘What Is a Nation?’ In What Is a Nation? And Other Political Writings, 247–63. Columbia Studies in Political Thought / Political History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.
Renes, J., and S. Piastra. ‘Polders and Politics: New Agricultural Landscapes in Italian and Dutch Wetlands, 1920s to 1950s’. Landscapes 12, no. 1 (2011): 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1179/lan.2011.12.1.24.
Ritter, Carl. ‘Narrative as a Form of Applied History’. Journal of Applied History 6, no. 1 (2024): 41–65. https://doi.org/10.1163/25895893-bja10041.
Romein, Jan, and Annie Romein-Verschoor. De lage landen bij de zee: Geïllustreerde geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche volk van Duinkerken tot Delfzijl. Utrecht: W. de Haan, 1934.
Sani, Fabio, Mhairi Bowe, Marina Herrera, Cristian Manna, Tiziana Cossa, Xiulou Miao, and Yuefang Zhou. ‘Perceived Collective Continuity: Seeing Groups as Entities That Move through Time’. European Journal of Social Psychology 37, no. 6 (2007): 1118–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.430.
Schama, Simon. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. London: Harper Press, 2004.
Seeger, Matthew W., and Timothy L. Sellnow. Narratives of Crisis: Telling Stories of Ruin and Renewal. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.
Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Michael D. Jones, and Mark K. McBeth. ‘How to Conduct a Narrative Policy Framework Study’. The Social Science Journal 55, no. 3 (2018): 332–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2017.12.002.
Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Michael D. Jones, Mark K. McBeth, and Ross R. Lane. ‘An Angel on the Wind: How Heroic Policy Narratives Shape Policy Realities’. Policy Studies Journal 41, no. 3 (2013): 453–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12025.
Sintobin, Tom. ‘“Golvende korenvelden”: De literaire representatie van de Zuiderzeewerken’. In ‘Getemd maar rusteloos’: De Zuiderzee verbeeld. Een multidisciplinair onderzoek, edited by Tom Sintobin, 211–52. Hilversum: Verloren, 2008.
Sörlin, Sverker. ‘The Articulation of Territory: Landscape and the Constitution of Regional and National Identity’. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift – Norwegian Journal of Geography 53, no. 2–3 (1999): 103–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/00291959950136821.
Steenhuis, Marinke, Johanna van Doorn, Lara Voerman, Joost Emmerik, Minke Walda, Luc Timmermans, and Paul Meurs. ‘De Deltawerken: Cultuurhistorie en ontwerpgeschiedenis’. Paterswolde: SteenhuisMeurs, July 2015. https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3Abedc2a9a-8b5e-422b-9124-be83a987a621.
Sugiyama, Michelle Scalise. ‘Narrative Theory and Function: Why Evolution Matters’. Philosophy and Literature 25, no. 2 (2001): 233–50.
TeBrake, W. H. ‘Land Drainage and Public Environmental Policy In Medieval Holland’. Environmental History Review 12, no. 3 (1988): 75–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/3984286.
Tenhaeff, N. B. ‘De pijlers van onze volkskracht’. In De Nederlandsche geest, 29–112. Naarden: In den toren, 1942. https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=MMKB18B:058393000:00008.
Terlouw, Kees. ‘Iconic Site Development and Legitimating Policies: The Changing Role of Water in Dutch Identity Discourses’. Geoforum 57 (2014): 30–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.08.008.
Tielhof, Milja van. ‘Op zoek naar het poldermodel in de waterstaatsgeschiedenis’. Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis 122, no. 2 (2009): 148–61. https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGESCH2009.2.TIEL.
Tielhof, Milja van. ‘Waterschappen als de oudste democratische instellingen van Nederland: Het ontstaan van een mythe’. Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 25, no. 2 (2015): 87–98.
Tinbergen, Jan. Is Nederland overbevolkt? Leiden: Stenfert Kroese, 1942.
Todorov, Tzvetan. ‘The 2 Principles of Narrative’. Diacritics 1, no. 1 (1971): 37–44. https://doi.org/10.2307/464558.
Toebast, Judith. ‘Voor als de dijken doorgingen: Maatregelen tegen rivieroverstromingen bij boerderijen, zeventiende-negentiende eeuw’. Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 21, no. 1–2 (2012): 11–22.
Toussaint, Bert. ‘De “physique existentie” verwoord en verbeeld: Rijkswaterstaat en de communicatie rondom waterveiligheid’. In Welke verhalen vertellen we?: Narratieve strategieën rondom waterbeheer en zeespiegelstijging, edited by Lotte Jensen and Adriaan Duiveman, 22–29. Nijmegen: Radboud University, 2020.
Veen, Johan van. Dredge, Drain, Reclaim: The Art of a Nation. 5th ed. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962. http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a7fe541b-692d-497a-8ea3-ca4e9a6ef482.
Ven, G. P., ed. Leefbaar laagland: geschiedenis van de waterbeheersing en landaanwinning in Nederland. 2nd rev. ed. Utrecht: Uitg. Matrijs, 1993.
Verduijn, Simon H., Sander V. Meijerink, and Pieter Leroy. ‘How the Second Delta Committee Set the Agenda for Climate Adaptation Policy: A Dutch Case Study on Framing Strategies for Policy Change’. Water Alternatives 5, no. 2 (2012): 469–84.
Vink, Martinus J., Daan Boezeman, Art Dewulf, and Catrien J. A. M. Termeer. ‘Changing Climate, Changing Frames: Dutch Water Policy Frame Developments in the Context of a Rise and Fall of Attention to Climate Change’. Environmental Science & Policy 30 (2013): 90–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2012.10.010.
Vleuten, Eric van der, Ruth Oldenziel, and Mila Davids. Engineering the Future, Understanding the Past: A Social History of Technology. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789462985407/engineering-the-future-understanding-the-past.
Wertsch, James V. How Nations Remember: A Narrative Approach. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.
White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. JHU Press, 1975.
Wilson, Jeffrey K. The German Forest: Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol, 1871–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Worster, Donald. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Studies in Environment and History. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Zimmer, Fabian. ‘Nature, Nation and the Dam. Narratives about the Harnessed Waterfall in Early Twentieth-Century Sweden’. International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 7, no. 1 (2019): 171–208. https://doi.org/10.18352/hcm.553.
Zimmer, Oliver. ‘In Search of Natural Identity: Alpine Landscape and the Reconstruction of the Swiss Nation’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 40, no. 4 (1998): 637–65.
Zwart, Hub. ‘Aquaphobia, Tulipmania, Biophilia: A Moral Geography of the Dutch Landscape’. Environmental Values 12, no. 1 (2003): 107–28. https://doi.org/10.3197/096327103129341252.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 342 | 342 | 60 |
Full Text Views | 21 | 21 | 4 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 46 | 46 | 12 |
Engineer Johan van Veen is widely regarded as the “father” of the Dutch Delta Works, a series of sea defence structures which protect parts of the Netherlands against storm surges. When the construction started, the plans were unprecedented in scale and wagered on technologies that were not yet invented. Nonetheless, this article shows that Van Veen defended his daring, innovative, and expensive megaproject by telling a narrative about 24 centuries of national, Dutch history. Drawing inspiration from the Narrative Policy Framework developed by policy researchers, it analyses Van Veen’s English-language book Dredge, Drain, Reclaim (1948–1962). Here, the engineer created a plot in which the Delta Works were the logical climax of Dutch history.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 342 | 342 | 60 |
Full Text Views | 21 | 21 | 4 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 46 | 46 | 12 |