Dr Guido van Meersbergen

Associate Professor in Early Modern Global History

On study leave in 2025-2026

Office: FAB 3.73 (third floor, Faculty of Arts Building)

Email: g dot van-meersbergen at warwick dot ac dot uk

Office hours: Wednesday 11-12 & Thursday 11-12 (please book here)

Faculty of Arts Building, 6 University Road
University of 桃色视频
Coventry CV4 7EQ

+44(0)24765 22163

Academic Profile

2023-: Associate Professor in Early Modern Global History, University of 桃色视频

2019-2023: Assistant Professor in Early Modern Global History, University of 桃色视频

2016-2019: Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, University of 桃色视频

2015-2016: Max Weber Fellow, European University Institute, Florence

2015: Teaching fellow, Universiteit van Amsterdam and Universiteit Leiden

2010-2014: PhD, History, University College London

Research

My research focuses on early modern global trade, diplomacy, travel, and the activities of the Dutch and English East India Companies in the Indian Ocean world, particularly in the Mughal Empire. My first monograph, , maps the role of ethnographic ideas and assumptions in the management and operations of the Dutch and English East India Companies (VOC and EIC). Focusing on encounters in the realms of commerce, diplomacy, and colonial governance, it analyses the ways in which corporate writing cultures and early modern ethnography both reflected and drove the Companies鈥� engagement in cross-cultural contacts. I am the co-editor of a volume of essays entitled and one of the coordinators of an international collaborative project on the embassy of Sir William Norris to Mughal India (1699-1702), which will result in a scholarly edition of Norris' embassy diaries published by the Hakluyt Society. I am the PI on the AHRC Research Networking Grant 'Towards a Global Diplomatic History, c. 1400-1900', which aims to replace existing Eurocentric narratives of diplomatic history with a new understanding of the global origins of inter-polity exchange.

My ongoing research, started as a , draws on approaches from diplomatic history, cultural history, and global history to reconsider the place of European actors within the diplomatic world of early modern South Asia. It questions established Europe-centred narratives of the rise of early modern diplomacy by highlighting the significance of Asian actors and polities in this wider development. With Birgit Tremml-Werner and Lisa Hellman I coordinate the an international network that seeks to advance the fields of global and diplomatic history by fostering a comparative, trans-regional, and connected understanding of the development and practice of inter-polity relations across the globe in the period between 1400 and 1900. Furthermore, with Natalya Din-Kariuki, I am co-editing a volume of essays on decolonial approaches to the study of global travel. At 桃色视频, I have directed the Global History and Culture Centre (2022-2025). Beyond 桃色视频, I serve as one of the co-editors of .

Teaching

A Global History of Travel: Odyssey to Aeroplane (HI3K2)Link opens in a new window

Go-Betweens: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern WorldLink opens in a new window (HI2B2)

Caravans and Traders: Global Connections, 1200-1500Link opens in a new window (HI2B8)

Galleons and Galleys: Global Connections, 1500-1800 (HI2C1)Link opens in a new window

Themes & Approaches to the Historical 桃色视频 of Empire (HI995) (MA)Link opens in a new window

Supervision

I welcome postgraduate students and postdocs interested in working on the global history of diplomacy, travel, trade, empire, or ethnography in the early modern world. Prospective applicants are encouraged to explore the resources and research activities of the Global History and Culture CentreLink opens in a new window.

PhD projects supervised

Nitya Gundu, 'Local Responses to Early Modern Global Contact in Peninsular India in the 17th and 18th Centuries'

Andrew Steels, 'English Merchant Families and the Organisation of Trade in the Levant, 1600-1750'. EportfolioLink opens in a new window.

Alfisha Sabri, 'Mussoorie and Other Colonial Hill Stations through the Tourist Gaze and Local Perception'. EportfolioLink opens in a new window.

Anna Bruins, 'In Pursuit of Planting: Scientific Travel and the VOC's Quest for Botanical, Environmental and Agricultural Knowledge in the Indian Ocean World (1600-1800)'. EportfolioLink opens in a new window.

Rosie Hodgson, 'Editing Empire: The Hakluyt Society in (Post-)Imperial Britain, 1846-Present'

Publications

Monograph

(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022).

Edited volume

, co-edited with Aske Laursen Brock and Edmond Smith (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2022).

Articles

'Travel Studies and the Decolonial Turn' (with Natalya Din-Kariuki), Studies in Travel Writing 27.2 (2024), 77-93. .
'Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings', Revue fran莽aise de civilisation Britannique 29.3 (2024), .
'The Dutch East India Company in South Asia', Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (2023). .
'"Intirely the Kings Vassalls": East India Company Gifting Practices and Anglo-Mughal Political Exchange (c. 1670-1720)', Diplomatica 2.2 (2020), 270-290. .
'Introduction. Gift and Tribute in Early Modern Diplomacy: Afro-Eurasian Perspectives' (with Birgit Tremml-Werner and Lisa Hellman), Diplomatica 2.2 (2020), 185-200. (open access)

'The Diplomatic Repertoires of the East India Companies in Mughal South Asia, 1608-1717', The Historical Journal 62.4 (2019), 875-898. .
鈥榃riting East India Company History after the Cultural Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century East India Company and Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie鈥�, 17.3 (2017), 10-36.
鈥樷€業n goede en vertroude handen鈥�: Communicatie en beleid bij de VOC tijdens de Hollandse Oorlog (1672-1678)鈥�, De Zeventiende Eeuw 27.1 (2011), 80-101.

鈥楧e uitgeversstrategie van Jacob van Meurs belicht: De Amsterdamse en 鈥楢ntwerpse鈥� edities van Johan Nieuhofs Gezantschap (1665-1666), De Zeventiende Eeuw 26.1 (2010), 73-90.

Chapters

'Francesco Carletti and the World of Sex', in Trading at the Edge of Empires: Francesco Carletti's World, c. 1600, edited by Brian Brege, Paula Findlen, Luca Mol脿, and Giorgio Riello (Harvard University Press, 2026).
'Writing that Travels: The Dutch East India Company's Paper-Based Information Management' (with Frank Birkenholz), in: Aske Laursen Brock, Guido van Meersbergen and Edmond Smith (eds.), (Abingdon and New York: 2022), 43-70.
'Trading Companies and Travel Knowledge: An Introduction' (with Aske Laursen Brock and Edmond Smith), in: Aske Laursen Brock, Guido van Meersbergen and Edmond Smith (eds.), (Abingdon and New York: 2022), 1-20.
鈥楾rade鈥�, in: Charles Forsdick, Zo毛 Kinsley, and Kathryn Walchester (eds.), (London: Anthem Press, 2019), pp. 256-258.
'Diplomacy in a Provincial Setting: The East India Companies in Seventeenth-Century Bengal and Orissa', in: Adam Clulow and Tristan Mostert (eds.), The Dutch and English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 55-78. .
'The Merchant-Diplomat in Comparative Perspective: Dutch and other Embassies to the Court of Aurangzeb, 1660-1666鈥�, in Tracey Sowerby and Jan Hennings (eds.), (New York: Routledge, 2017), 147-165.
鈥楧utch and English Approaches to Cross-Cultural Trade in Mughal India and the Problem of Trust, circa 1600-1630鈥�, in C谩tia Antunes and Am茅lia Pol贸nia (eds.), (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016), 69-87.
鈥楰ijken en bekeken worden: Een Nederlandse gezant in Delhi, 1677-1678鈥�, in Lodewijk Wagenaar (ed.), (1600-1800) (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2015), 201-216.

Other

"Decolonising Travel Studies: Notes for the Hakluyt Society" (The Hakluyt Society: 2025), with Natalya Din-Kariuki
'The East India Company's Relations with the VOC and South Asian Powers in the 17th-18th centuries', , Adam Matthew (2020).

External roles & professional membership

Co-editor, Journal of Global History
Council Member of the (2013-2025)
Fellow of Advance HE (FHEA)
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS)
Editorial advisory board for

Media and presentations

'', Reimagining Primary Sources, Maritime Museum Liverpool, 2023.

'' (with Natalya Din-Kariuki), Reimagining Higher Education, Demontfort University, 2023.

'', Massolit, 2024.

'' (with Natalya Din-Kariuki), Hakluyt Society Annual Lecture, Royal Asiatic Society, 2024.