In the fin-de-siecle (end 1800's/begin 1900's) history was very much tied in with nationalism. History was a relatively new academical subject and archeology was the brand new thing on the block. Heinrich Schliemann had just lately uncovered the remains of Troy. Besides being the mythical city from the Illiad, the Troyans were also mythically tied in with the origin of Rome.

Now, Rome had always been a bit of a focal point for historians. Most medieval kings had sought to trace back their lineage to some kind of Roman ancestor, as that brought them 'authoritas', or regal credibility. Edward Gibbon, as one of the first scholars of history, had cemented the idea of Rome>Dark Age>Renaissance in his 'The history of the decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'.

Most nation-states were now wondering what had been their own pre-roman history. Seeing that most post-roman history was very heavily influenced by... well, roman history. For this, they relied on written reports of roman writers, most notably Tacitus and Caesar and this rather new-fangeled thing called archeology.

In The Netherlands, for instance, they tried to correlate the archeological findings with Tacitus' writings. As Tacitus had written a couple of paragraphs on the Batavians, who were living in the area we call 'The Netherlands' nowadays. By correlate I mean 'seeking validation of Tacitus' writings without applying much academic criticism'. The archeologist Holwerda found an army camp near Nijmegen and instantly claimed it had been the base of the Batavian/Roman Iulius Civilis, who had rebelled against the Romans.

This tied in nicely with the 'Batavian Myth': the idea that the rebellious nature of the Batavians somehow had remained in the Netherlanders, causing them to rebel agains the Spanish in the 16th century. This 'myth making/sustaining' was rather large in the fin de siécle, in the '20's archeologists started to look at evidence with a bit more academic distance.

This originalism and myth-seeking had some profound influence of the theories of nationalists, such as nazis. Tacitus' 'large, blond-haired, warrior tribes of Germany' tied in really well with eugenetical ideas and formed the 'Aryan man' that was fundamental in nazi philosopy. (see: A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich).

To recap: An historian in The Netherlands would probaly discuss Schliemanns Troy, Holwerda's Batavian Netherlands (and how that tied in with the Dutch history of the 16th century) and national history (notably protestant vs. catholic history, as the Catholic church had just been 'legalized' and sharp divides between catholics and protestants started forming in the wake of the discussion on the right of general education).

Sources:

• Eickhoff, M, 'De oorsprong van het’eigene’. Nederlands vroegste verleden, archeologie en nationaal-socialisme', 2003.
• Haitsma Mulier, E O G, 'De Bataafse mythe opnieuw bekeken', BMGN-Low Countries Historical Review 111 (1996), 344–367.
• Krebs, Christopher, A most dangerous book : Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich, 2011.
• Dyson, SL, In pursuit of ancient pasts: A history of classical archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (New York, 2008).
• Sas, NCF Van, 'Fin-de-siècle als nieuw begin. Nationalisme in Nederland rond 1900', BMGN-Low Countries Historical Review 106 (1991), 595–609.
• Holwerda, J.H., Nederland’s vroegste geschiedenis (Amsterdam, 1918).