Henk Wals
Profile
Henk Wals (1954) studied Social and Economic history at the University of Amsterdam. After having worked in the corporate sector for 10 years, in 1982 he accepted a position with the International Institute of Social History, where he has been deputy director from 1993 until 2005.
In 2000, he gained his PhD with a study on survival strategies of construction workers in Amsterdam during the first quarter of the 20th century. His main research interests are living strategies of workers and trade unionism.
In 2004 he was appointed interim director of Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, a fellow Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In 2010 the Huygens Institute merged with the Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis (ING) and Henk Wals became director of the Huygens-ING Institute, the largest Institute for research on the humanities in the Netherlands.
As of 19 November 2012, Henk Wals holds the appointment of general director of the International Institute of Social History.
Publications
- ‘Een onbatig slot. Het belang van de economische factor in de dekolonialisatie van Nederlands Indië’, in: Skript Vol. 9, no. 3 (1987), pp. 183-192 [with David Bazen en Emiel Schäfer].
- ‘Stakingen in Nederland tussen 1901 en 1938. Economische factoren en de rol van de vakbeweging’, in: Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis Vol 17, no 2 (1991), pp. 197-226.
- Makers en Stakers. Amsterdamse bouwvakarbeiders en hun bestaansstrategieën in het eerste kwart van de twintigste eeuw, (Amsterdam 2001).
- ‘The Trade Union as Survival Strategy. The Case of Amsterdam Construction Workers in the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century’, in: Jan Kok (ed.), Rebellious families. Household strategies and collective action in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Oxford, 2002), pp. 140-165.
- [with: Jan Kok and Kees Mandemakers], ‘Toen scharrelde ze met haar hele zoodje naar een derde-achterkamer’. Verhuizen als bestaansstrategie, Amsterdam 1890-1940′, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, vol. 29, no 3 (2003), 333-360.
- ‘Nieuw licht op de arbeider. Verschuivende perspectieven op de geschiedenis van arbeid, arbeiders en vakbeweging’, Spiegel Historiael, vol 38, no 5 (2003), 214-219.
- [with: Jan Kok and Kees Mandemakers], ‘City Nomads. Changing Residence as a Coping Strategy, Amsterdam, 1890-1940, in: Social Science History, vol. 29, no 1 (2005), 15-43.