Revolution statt Religion: Anacharsis Cloots – der atheistische Revolutionär

Revolution, not Religion. Anacharsis Cloots – The Atheist Revolutionary On March 24, 1794, Jean-Baptiste Cloots, a native of Kleve on the Lower Rhine who styled himself Anacharsis, lost his life under the guillotine in Paris. While the reasons for his execution are diverse, one important explanation can be found in his attitude towards religion in antithesis to that of Robespierre. Cloots’, seemingly inevitable development from deist (i.e. a representative of the natural religion in the tradition of Voltaire) to nihilist as well as his correspondingly evolving views on religion and church are very clearly connected to the different stages of his life. This article will, therefore, integrate Cloots’ biography with his religious views to illuminate his struggle against church and religion in antithesis to Robespierre. In retrospect, Cloots was pioneering not only for rejecting revelatory religion but even more so for his rejection of natural religion.

NEW INSIGHTS CONCERNING IDENTIFICATION, MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION OF INDIGENOUS TREES AND SHRUBS IN THE NETHERLANDS

In densely populated European countries like the Netherlands, old landscape elements such as ancient woodlands and ancient hedges are today rare. Owing to the introduction of exotic species and indigenous trees and shrubs imported from other climate zones, recognition of truly wild, i.e. autochthonous, individuals and populations is now problematical, posing challenges for forest management agencies, particularly at Natura 2000 sites. The author has developed a method for recognising genetically pure wild woody species, based on characteristics of the plant itself and those of the growing site. With this method, explained here, around 70% of the Netherlands has been surveyed, along with much of Flanders and part of the lower Rhine region of Germany. The results are illustrated with reference to two Dutch ancient woodlands, where new insights were obtained in terms of native status of the woody species and the ‘authenticity’ of the tree and shrub layer.

Flooding and Management of Large Fluvial Lowlands

Pressure on large fluvial lowlands has increased tremendously during the past twenty years because of flood control, urbanization, and increased dependence upon floodplains and deltas for food production. This book examines human impacts on lowland rivers, and discusses how these changes affect different types of riverine environments and flood processes. Surveying a global range of large rivers, it provides a primary focus on the lower Rhine River in the Netherlands and the Lower Mississippi River in Louisiana. A particular focus of the book is on geo-engineering, which is described in a straight-forward writing style that is accessible to a broad audience of advanced students, researchers, and practitioners in global environmental change, fluvial geomorphology and sedimentology, and flood and water management.

On the Dilatancy of Fine-Grained Soils

A new evaluation method for the dilatancy of fine-grained soils based on monotonic and cyclic undrained triaxial tests has been established using two elasticity approaches: isotropic and transverse isotropic hypoelasticity. The evaluation of two clays, Kaolin and Lower Rhine Clay, with the new method also shows that the dilatancy of fine-grained soils is dependent on the stress ratio, the void ratio, and the straining direction along with the intrinsic material parameters. Similar to sand, we can observe a Phase Transformation Line beyond which further shearing induces a volume increase. A generalization of the Taylor dilatancy rule from direct shear to multiaxial space is established, and an extension accounting for the behaviour of soft soils is proposed. We formulate a simple hypoplastic constitutive relation with a modified flow rule that reproduces the observed dilatant as well as contractant behaviour. Some simulations of monotonic as well as cyclic tests prove the accurate performance of the proposed dilatancy relation.

Adam Pastor (ca. 1500–ca. 1565)

Adam Pastor was an itinerant Anabaptist bishop in the Lower Rhine region. Ordained by Menno Simons around 1542, he is best known for the division that unfolded between Dirk Philips and Menno Simons, which led to the first schism in Mennonitism. Although sixteenth-century contemporaries described him as an important bishop alongside Menno, Mennonite historiography since then has largely ignored him. Pastor’s theological views are known primarily from his Onderscheytboeck [Book of Distinctions] of ca. 1554. The recent discovery of an earlier and hitherto unknown version of this writing, however, demonstrates a more gradual development of Adam Pastor’s “spiritualism.” In 1547 Pastor opposed Menno’s Melchiorite doctrine of the incarnation. Several years later, he arrived at the inevitable conclusion and denied—at least implicitly—the Trinity. The result was his break with Menno and Dirk and a subsequent division between the bishops from the Northern Netherlands and those of the Lower Rhine.