Johannes Müller has written an important contribution to the history of religious migration. The title of his book promises an analysis of “exile memories and the Dutch Revolt” but his book offers more than that. It therefore deserves to be read by those interested in the wider field of migration. His use of memory studies offers a new approach to the study of exile that turns out to be highly useful. His chapter on the perception of strangers from the south offers new and valuable insights. Müller’s book describes how migrants commemorated their exilic past and how this memory cult influenced their identity. He analyzes the various discourses on exile, the ways migrants used their past to promote their thought and ambitions, the ways families commemorated their past, and the preservation of networks of migrants.

Müller primarily uses treatises and books written by migrants in which they describe exile experiences. Now and then he is, I think, too much inclined to make these stories fit into his own framework. An example of this is his use of Anna Maria van Schurman’s Eukleria. In this book Van Schurman (1607–78) elaborates on her decision to join the Pietist circle of the Labadists, leaving the public church. According to her, the largest part of the public Reformed church consisted of “name-christians.” She explained her own choice in terms of leaving the world and choosing a true Christian life. Müller links her emphasis on being a stranger in this world with her own migrant background and analyzes how people cultivated their own exilic background. But being a foreigner in this world was of course a common theological theme that was already used by Paul. Augustine described believers as pilgrims on their way to their heavenly fatherland, and since then this theme has never disappeared. Hence one may wonder to what extent Van Schurman’s emphasis on being a stranger in this world had something to do with her own family history. Van Schurman herself doesn’t elaborate on what it means to be a migrant. One may ask whether the awareness of being a stranger in this world wasn’t simply embedded in this larger theological tradition. Müller now and then seems to ignore this more general theological background. This goes as well for his analysis of the sixteenth-century debate over whether a flight was permitted or not. This had already been a matter of debate in the early church. For example, Irena Backus has shown how Tertullian’s thought on this question remained highly important to sixteenth-century believers.

These remarks shouldn’t distract from the many strengths of Müller’s book. In his second chapter he shows the close connection between the way people commemorated the past and their political vision. At a certain point people had to give up their hopes of returning to their homeland. Müller offers a thorough analysis of the close connection between the changing political reality and the changing commemoration of the past. Even more important, I think, is the point he makes in his third chapter on the perception of strangers and refugees from the south. Contemporary believers often described these southern refugees as uncompromising radicals. Müller unravels fact from fiction, person from image. By a careful analysis of the rhetoric used, Müller describes how people used the epithet stranger or southerner as an ad hominem argument that had little to do with an actual gap between the thought of strangers and natives. Another chapter is dedicated to family history, in which Müller shows how migrant families now and then manipulated their past to claim a higher social status. In many cases these stories helped them to integrate in local societies. Hence the cultivation of an exile identity didn’t provoke the separation from host societies but rather helped these migrant families to claim a place within these host societies.

This chapter on family history is a fine example of how Müller combines a close reading of texts with profound archival research. His careful reading of the sources and his use of a rich variety of source material enable him to offer new perspectives. All in all, Müller offers a valuable contribution to the history of the Dutch Republic and to the history of migration. His book deserves a wide audience.