caption death_date nationality field birth_date image article_title name
n. w. posthumus 18 april 1960 dutch economic history 26 february 1880 posthumus.jpg nicolaas wilhelmus posthumus
 nicolaas wilhelmus posthumus
nicolaas wilhelmus posthumus

nicolaas wilhelmus posthumus or n.w. posthumus -lrb- february 26 , 1880 , amsterdam -- april 18 , 1960 , bussum -rrb- was a dutch economic historian and political scientist .
in 1915 , he founded and published the economisch-historisch jaarboek -- a yearly collection of primary source documents and empirical analysis of dutch merchant records .
following the rise of the nazi party in germany , posthumus founded the international institute of social history in 1935 as a place to retain socialist documents and histories safe from the nazi regime and other governments which might exert control over them .
when germany invaded the netherlands the activities of the institute were disrupted .
he was dismissed in 1942 by the government of the occupied netherlands and returned to his post only following the war .
during the war he managed to publish `` inquiry into the history of prices in holland .
vol .
i '' , an exhaustive empirical study of market prices and rates of exchange in amsterdam from the 16th century until the first world war .
the work was favorably received and remains his most widely cited to date .
after the war he wrote a history of the german occupation of the netherlands entitled `` the netherlands during german occupation '' .
he worked with various institutes , including the dutch institute for war documentation and held a full professorship in economic and social sciences at the university of amsterdam until 1949 , when he resigned to head the brill publishing house .
the n.w. posthumus instituut , a graduate research facility in economics at the university of groningen , was founded in 1988 in his honor .
in 1929 posthumus became member of the royal netherlands academy of arts and sciences , he was forced to resign in 1942 .
in 1945 he was readmitted as member .
