Book

Rumours of Revolt: Civil War and the Emergence of a Transnational News Culture in France and the Netherlands, 1561–1598

This book explores the reception of foreign news during the late sixteenth-century civil wars in France and the Netherlands.

Author

Rosanne M. Baars

Date

16 September 2021

Links

Brill

Analysing a large body of French and Dutch chronicles, Rosanne Baars innovatively demonstrates that the wider public was well aware of events abroad, though interest in foreign conflicts was far from constant. She sheds new light on the connections between the Dutch Revolt and the French Wars of Religion: contemporaries were gradually more inclined to see these wars as part of an international struggle. Baars argues that these times of civil war made inhabitants of both countries more apt at distinguishing rumour from reliable reports, thus contributing to the emergence of a public of critical news consumers.