Jos Gommans

{{Short description|Dutch historian}}

Jozef Johannes Leon Gommans, shortened to Jos Gommans, is a Dutch historian and professor of Colonial and Global History at the Institute for History, Leiden University.

He was born in Venlo on 1 April 1963. Studying at the Catholic University of Nijmegen and Leiden University, he graduated in 1987.{{cite web|url=https://www.dutchstudies-satsea.nl/deelnemers/gommans-jozef-johannes-leon-jos/|title=Jozef Johannes Leon (Jos) Gommans|date=6 January 2017 |publisher=Dutch Studies on South Asia, Tibet and classical Southeast Asia|access-date=15 September 2024}} From 1989 to 1993 he was a research fellow for the Dutch Research Council, in 1993 defending his dissertation "Horse-Traders, Mercenaries and Princes: The Formation of the Indo-Afghan Empire in the Eighteenth Century" under the supervision of the Indologists Jan Heesterman and André Wink. He was appointed as associate professor of South Asian history at Leiden University in 1993, gaining professorship in Colonial and Global History in 2011.{{cite web|url=https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Gommans_Jos|title=Jos Gommans|publisher=Academia Europaea|access-date=15 September 2024}}

Gommans is mainly known for his the books on early modern South Asian history: The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, 1710–1780 (Oxford University Press, 1999) and Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and High Roads to Empire (Routledge, 2002).{{cite web|url=https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Gommans_Jos/CV|title=Jos Gommans – Biography|publisher=Academia Europaea|access-date=15 September 2024}}

{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40110533|author=Stephen F. Dale|author-link=Stephen F. Dale|journal=The International History Review|volume=26|issue=3|year=2004|pages=607–609|doi=|access-date=15 September 2024|title=Review|jstor=40110533 }}{{cite journal|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/abs/jos-gommans-mughal-warfare-indian-frontiers-and-highroads-to-empire-new-york-routledge-2002-xvi-268-pp-isbn-0415239885-cloth-0415239893-pbk/1F51CFF5AC87B9B9998FB7313BF7F27F|author=Markus Vink|journal=Itinerario|volume=27|issue=1|year=2003|pages=117–121|doi=10.1017/S0165115300020349|access-date=15 September 2024|title=Review}}{{cite journal|url=https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cjh.40.1.158|author=Charles C. Kolb|doi=10.3138/cjh.40.1.158|journal=Canadian Journal of History|year=2005|volume=40|issue=1|access-date=15 September 2024|title=Review|pages=158–160 }}{{cite journal|url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/109/2/501/16393|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=109|issue=2|pages=501–502|doi=10.1086/ahr/109.2.501

|year=2004|author=Stephen P. Blake|access-date=15 September 2024|title=Review}}{{cite journal|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/196908960|author=Seema Alavi|author-link=Seema Alavi|journal=Modern Asian Studies|volume=39|issue=|year=2005|pages=504–506|doi=|access-date=15 September 2024|title=Review|id={{ProQuest|196908960}} }} {{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2yGmeuExeQ |title=The Geopolitics of the Mughal Empire |date=2017-03-28 |last=Strategy Stuff |access-date=2025-01-04 |via=YouTube}} An omnibus of his South Asian work came out in 2018 as The Indian Frontier: Horse and Warband in the Making of Empires (Routledge, 2018). Later in his career, Gommans started to work on Dutch colonial history, publishing The Unseen World: The Netherlands and India from 1550 (Rijksmuseum and Vantilt 2018) and with Pieter Emmer,The Dutch Overseas Empire, 1600–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2021).{{Cite journal |last=Cook |first=Harold J. |date=2023 |title=Review of Dutch Overseas Empire by Emmer and Gommans |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/723346 |journal=The Journal of Modern History |volume=95 |issue=1 |pages=237–239}} With his former students Lennart Bes and Gijs Kruijtzer he produced the archival inventory Dutch Sources on South Asia c. 1600–1825. Vol. 1: Bibliography and Archival Guide to the National Archives at The Hague (Manohar Publishers. 2001) as well as two historical VOC-atlases: Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch United East India Company, Part VI: India, Persia and the Arabian Peninsula (Atlas Maior Publishers, 2010) and with Rob van Diessen, Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch United East India Company, Part VII: East Asia, Burma to Japan (Atlas Maior Publishers, 2010).{{Cite web |title=Nationaal Archief {{!}} CABR Wachtrij |url=https://gatekeeper.nationaalarchief.nl/?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationaalarchief.nl%2Fonderzoeken%2Farchief%2F2.14.97%2Finvnr%2F%40B.~div.nrs.-11~11.1-11.7~11.6 |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=gatekeeper.nationaalarchief.nl}}{{Cite web |title=Nationaal Archief {{!}} CABR Wachtrij |url=https://gatekeeper.nationaalarchief.nl/?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationaalarchief.nl%2Fonderzoeken%2Farchief%2F2.14.97%2Finvnr%2F8ED%2Ffile%3FeadID%3D2.14.97%26unitID%3D8ED%26query%3DDutch |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=gatekeeper.nationaalarchief.nl}} In the early 2020s he cooperated closely with Said Reza Huseini in writing various research articles on the global intellectual history of Islamic Neoplatonism and the Mongol legacy in particular pertaining to the Mughal emperor Akbar.{{Cite web |date=2023-05-13 |title=Was Akbar’s ideology of Sulh-i-kul inspired by a Hellenistic Greek philosophy? |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/research/was-akbars-ideology-of-sulh-i-kul-inspired-by-a-hellenistic-greek-philosophy-8603554/ |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=The Indian Express |language=en}} In all his work, Gommans shows an interest in the medieval and early-modern interactions of South Asia with the outside world, in particular with Central Asia and Europe.{{Cite journal |last=Gommans |first=Jos |date=2025 |title=Worshipping the Sun at the End of Time: Neoplatonic Solar Cults in Mughal India and Barberini Rome |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23801883.2024.2402051 |journal=Journal of Global Intellectual History}}

Building on the initiative of his Leiden predecessor Leonard Blussé, Gommans spearheaded several programmes that trained over 150 students from Asia and South Africa at the BA, MA, and PhD levels. Between 2000 and 2025 these programmes (TANAP, Encompass, Cosmopolis and Cosmos Malabaricus) aimed to equip students with the skills to work with Dutch colonial archives, fostering a deeper integration of these sources into the regional histories of Asia and Africa.{{Cite journal |last=Gommans |first=Jos |date=2019 |title=Rethinking the VOC: Two Cheers for Progress |url=https://bmgn-lchr.nl/article/view/6924 |journal=BMGN Low Countries Historical Review |volume=134 |issue=2 |pages=142–152}}{{Cite journal |last=Gommans |first=Jos |date=2023 |title=The Dutch Colonial Archive in the Making of Global and Local Histories |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/is-global-history-global-convergences-and-inequalities/23DD96971AB3494632F34F1789100F0F |journal=Itinerario |volume=47 |pages=374–376}}{{Cite web |date=2023-04-04 |title=Ignored Dutch archives hold key to understanding colonial history of Kerala |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/research/ignored-dutch-archives-hold-key-to-understanding-colonial-history-of-kerala-8531654/ |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=The Indian Express |language=en}} In 2019 Gommans acted as the Rijksmuseum guest curator of the 2019 exhibition “India and the Netherlands in the Age of Rembrandt” at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Marahaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai.{{Cite web |last=Shankar |first=Avantika |date=2019-10-27 |title=CSMVS in Mumbai throws light on the age of the Rembrandt |url=https://www.architecturaldigest.in/content/mumbai-rembrandt-turned-india/ |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=Architectural Digest India |language=en-IN}} He also served as editor-in-chief of the bookseries Dutch Sources on South Asia (Manohar), that continued as the Leiden University Press bookseries Dutch Sources on Colonial and Global History and the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.{{Cite web |title=Colonial and Global History through Dutch Sources |url=https://lup.nl/series/colonial-and-global-history-through-dutch-sources/ |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=Leiden University Press |language=en-US}} He is a fellow of Academia Europaea.