K. W. Swart


Koenraad Wolter Swart was a Dutch-American historian, best known for his work on the role of William of Orange in the Dutch Revolt, and for his doctoral dissertation on the relationship between the state and state functionaries in the seventeenth century.

Life

Koenraad Swart was born in Rotterdam on 16 October 1916. His father, Pieter C. Swart, was editor in chief of the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant; his mother was J. G. Gratama. His father was the son of Lammert Swart commander of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and Chief of the Department of War in the Dutch East Indies. Swart was educated in The Hague and at the University of Leiden, where he took the candidature in Law before transferring to History. He was one of the very last doctoral students to study under Johan Huizinga. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War and by his employment, in 1947—49, by the Dutch Institute for War Documentation, on whose behalf he attended the Nuremberg Trials.
After completing the requirements for his doctorate in 1949, Swart was employed at a series of American universities: the University of Illinois at Urbana, Georgetown, Brenau College, and Agnes Scott College, also doing some teaching at Emory University in Atlanta. During this time he became an American citizen. In 1966 he succeeded Ernst Kossmann as Professor of Dutch History and Institutions at University College London, holding the chair until his retirement in 1983. He spent most of the rest of his life in Wassenaar, dying there in 1992.
Among his publications, his description of the manner in which people at the time understood the Dutch miracle as an event so singular as to be like a miracle continues to be widely cited. Swart was elected a correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1967.

Personal life

Swart married Ineke de Leng in 1950 and had four children Sonia, Peter, Stephanie and Philip.

Publications

Books