I am a historian of early modern political culture and ideas, with a special interest in the Spanish empire, the Low Countries and the Iberian world. My first book, The Power of Necessity: Reason of State in the Spanish Monarchy, ca 1590-1650 (Cambridge University Press 2023, series 'Ideas in Context'), explores how individuals negotiated the tension between political pragmatism and moral-religious principles in an empire under pressure, both in theory and in practice. In my current research I focus on (intellectual) conflict and exchange within the early modern Iberian world and the (colonial) Low Countries, European-indigenous encounters and alliance, and archival politics and silences. I am particularly interested in the connections between the Dutch Revolt and the Chilean Arauco War, and I study conflict and interactions between the Spanish, Dutch and Mapuche. 

I am programme director of the History Research MA and co-convenor of the Amsterdam-Utrecht Global Intellectual History Seminar