Far From the Truth: Distance, Information, and Credibility in the Early Modern World

This volume will be an essential companion to those interested in the history of knowledge and early modern encounters, as well as specialists in the history of empire and print culture.

Michiel van Groesen is Professor of Maritime History at Leiden University. His work is interdisciplinary in nature, focusing on the culture of early modern Europe’s imperial expansion and the politics of global interactions. He is the author of two books, Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages, 1590-1634(Brill, 2008) and Amsterdam’s Atlantic: Print Culture and the Making of Dutch Brazil (Penn, 2017). He is currently completing a monograph on the circulation of news and information in the Atlantic world, which is provisionally entitled An Ocean of Rumours, and will appear with Cambridge University Press.

Johannes Müller is an assistant professor at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. His research focuses on environmental history, memory studies, and the history of knowledge. Among his publications are the volumes Exile Memories and the Dutch Revolt: The Narrated Diaspora, 1550-1750 (Brill, 2016), Memory before Modernity. Practices of Memory in Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2013, co-edited with Judith Pollmann, Erika Kuijpers, and Jasper van der Steen), and he is currently preparing a book manuscript on the impact of climate on fish and fisheries with marine biologist Daniel Pauly.