BLOCKADE

Samuël Kruizinga is PI of BLOCKADE and Associate Professor of Modern History and War Studies at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. He previously studied at Leiden, Paris-I Sorbonne and Oxford, and held fellowships at Trinity College Dublin, Oxford University, and the European University Institute in Florence.

Dr. Kruizinga leads BLOCKADE’s Amsterdam-based team, which studies the relationship between the world war era blockades and the international orders from 1900-1960, and oversees, in close cooperation with CREATE, the project’s digital humanities components. Case studies include an analysis of the blockade building in Asia prior to the Second World War, the relationship between blockades and nutritional and social science, the lasting impact of blockades on decolonisation and the liberal world order created after 1945, and the relationships between blockades and international sanctions regimes.

Trained as an historian, Kruizinga’s work has been deeply influenced by insights from the political, social and economic sciences, as well as war and strategic studies and the digital humanities. Interdisciplinary by nature, his research focuses on conflict, conflict resolution, and resilience to shocks and crises in modern Europe and beyond. Specifically, he studies occupations in the First and Second World Wars, forms of conflict in the space between the philosophical and legal extremes of war and peace (grey zone warfare), on foreign fighting in the 20th and 21st centuries (including in Ukraine) and on sanctions and economic blockades in the 20th century.

He has (co)-written numerous books and articles and (co-)edited volumes and special issues of journals. His work has appeared in multiple languages, including English, French, German, Czech, and Chinese, and in leading academic journals, including European review of history, War in History, European History Quarterly, Contemporary European History, and the The International History Review. He is currently co-writing, with Prof Sophie De Schaepdrijver, a book on the occupation of Brussels during the First World War.

For a complete overview of his publications, see his personal website.