Transforming the Public Sphere: The Dutch National Exhibition of Women's Labor in 1898 by Maria Grever, Berteke Waaldijk, Mischa F. C. Hoyinck, Robert E. Chesal

Abstract

9I2 Reviews European language, and indeed a good many entries make reference to it. Various explanations are offered for the lemma aal 'eel', for example, but each has some draw back, and the entry concludes that since archaeological evidence shows that eels were eaten in northern Europe in theMesolithic Period, the word will probably be from the substrate. As many as 15 per cent of native Dutch words are substrate words, if this volume is to be believed. Obviously, the editors are heavily influenced here by recent work in Leiden which has supported this theory. It is, however, a far more contentious hypothesis than the introductory discussion suggests. While it is useful, then, to be told when aword is subject to the substrate debate, this information needs to be treated with care. The articles themselves show all the marks of rigorous scholarship, including (the introduction promises) original research when existing studies are lacking. Attested forms from earlier periods of Dutch are listed, as are the widest possible range of cognates, and the assumed route of descent from the Proto-Indo-European roots. In most cases there is then a commentary which importantly devotes asmuch attention to semantic as to phonological aspects. Loanwords rate highly; they are not always dealt with quite so fully (given the focus on Indo-European origins, why not also trace back chaos beyond Greek to PIE *gheu?) but many recent borrowings from English are included. One would expect such a dictionary to include long-standing Dutch words of Latin, Greek, or French origin, but not necessarily beauty, callgirl, cash and carry, diehard, or deadline. Borrowings in the other direction are also noted: there is obviously an interest in Dutch words appearing as loans in English and also Scots (for a number of Scots dialect words are early modern borrowings from Dutch). And when aword has derived from the name of a historical or fictional person, the articles give the kind of information we might seek in a dictionary of phrase and fable: why exactly a nosey person is called an aagje. All in all, this is aworthy new tool for the serious study of Germanic philology, but also a source of great enrichment for anyone learning Dutch. UNIVERSITY OF REGENSBURG GRAEME DUNPHY Transforming the Public Sphere: The Dutch National Exhibition of Women's Labor in I898. By MARIA GREVER and BERTEKE WAALDIJK. Trans. by MISCHA F. C. HOYINCK and ROBERT E. CHESAL. Introduction by ANNE BURTON. Durham, NC, and London: Duke UniversityPress. 2004. vii+30 PP. ?i8.50. ISBN o 8223-3296-5. A book devoted entirely to the Dutch National Exhibition ofWomen's Labour might at first seem a strange candidate for translation into English, given that the culture and society of the Netherlands tend not to be the focus of scholarship in either the US or the UK unless, of course, the period in question is the Dutch Golden Age, the age of Rembrandt. If the Netherlands ismarginal tomainstream academic interests, surely a single event in that country is too marginal for words? Maria Grever and Berteke Waaldijk have produced a rich study which serves as a reminder of how instructive and fascinating detail can be. Such a book must not only be well researched, but also expertly narrated and, as Transforming the Public Sphere shows, sufficiently detailed for the reader to become absorbed in the stories radiating out from the single point of the exhibition. The main narratives are biographical, focusing on the lives of the women whose hard work, doggedness, and defiance led to the success of the exhibition-which did not always look assured in the preparatory phase. There were inevitable conflicts aswomen from different class backgrounds with widely differing personalities collaborated on this shared enterprise. New narrative MLR, I0I.3, 2oo6 9I3 strands emerge once the preparations are complete and the exhibition has opened. They focus on the ambiguous position of some of the participants, particularly those from the Dutch colonies, and on the experiences of visitors, including the seventeen year-old Queen Wilhelmina, who was due to be crowned in September I898, and the Queen Regent Emma. Transforming the Public Sphere ismuch more than a collection of narratives, how...