Rate My Professor Matthijs Lok

Matthijs Lok is a senior lecturer in modern European history at the Department of European Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. He studied European history at the Universities of Liverpool, Leiden, and Yale before earning his PhD from the History Department of the University of Amsterdam in 2009 with a dissertation on Napoleonic administrators during the Dutch and French Restoration periods. Lok received tenure as universitair docent, equivalent to senior lecturer, in 2011. His research centers on the role of conservatives during the age of revolution and the political culture of counter-revolution. He explores counter-narratives to political modernity and globalization, treating phenomena such as the Counter-Enlightenment, Counter-Revolution, anti- and illiberalism, and conservatism as transnational developments. Lok also investigates radicalism and moderation in the history of modern democracy, historical narratives of diversity and pluralism in Europe, and the invocation of the Enlightenment past in current debates.

Lok has published extensively on these themes. His monographs include Windvanen: Napoleontische bestuurders in de Nederlandse en Franse Restauratie (1813-1820) (Bert Bakker, 2009) and Europe against Revolution: Conservatism, Enlightenment and the Making of the Past (Oxford University Press, 2023). He has co-edited key volumes such as Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Countering Revolution in Transnational Networks, Ideas and Movements (c. 1700-1930) (Brill, 2021, with Friedemann Pestel and Juliette Reboul), The Politics of Moderation in Modern European History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, with Ido de Haan), and Eurocentrism in European History and Memory (Amsterdam University Press, 2019, with Marjet Brolsma and Robin de Bruin). Forthcoming edited works include The Making of Modern Atlantic Monarchies, 1770 to the Present Day (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026, with Carolina Armenteros and Iason Zarikos) and Antiliberal Internationalism in the Twentieth Century: Beyond Left and Right? (Routledge, 2025, with Marjet Brolsma, Robin de Bruin, Stefan Couperus, and Rachel McElroy White). Notable articles feature 'Illiberal Ideas: An Anatomy of Intellectual Historians and Illiberalism' (Journal of Illiberalism Studies, 2024), 'The Counter-Revolutionary Invention of European Diversity in Late-Enlightenment Historical Narratives' (De Gruyter, 2026), and 'The Congress of Vienna as a Missed Opportunity: Conservative Visions of a New European Order after Napoleon' (Cambridge University Press, 2019). He was nominated for the 2019 Faculty of Humanities Education Award for his course Legacies of the Enlightenment. Lok's scholarship illuminates the intellectual underpinnings of conservatism and moderation, shaping discussions on depolarization and democratic history.