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Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World
“Elegant and quietly important…Brook does more than merely sketch the beginnings of globalization and highlight the forces that brought our modern world into being; rather, he offers a timely reminder of humanity’s interdependence.”—Seattle Times A painting shows a military officer in a Dutch sitting room, talking to a laughing girl. I n another, a woman at a window w...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
December 23rd 2008
by Bloomsbury Press
(first published December 26th 2007)
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This was an interesting and enlightening book, but, imho, it engaged in false advertising.
Timothy Brook, an Oxford scholar, uses five Johannes Vermeer paintings (plus a couple of other artworks) as ways to explore the expanding world of global trade and intercultural contact in the 1600s.
In the title chapter, for instance, he uses one of those fantastically broad-brimmed Dutch hats in a Vermeer painting to explore the beaver trapping trade in Canada when the French ...more
This is a great little book that Todd loaned to me and have since passed on to Joel.
This little book is written by a knowledgable art historian who, I think also thinks of himself as an economic historian. As you go through the book, painting by painting (maybe seven painting in all)you are led by the hand through the culture of Holland at the time of the painting and through the painting to the world of global trade. You learn about the felt hats which leads to 40 pages on the bea...more
This little book is written by a knowledgable art historian who, I think also thinks of himself as an economic historian. As you go through the book, painting by painting (maybe seven painting in all)you are led by the hand through the culture of Holland at the time of the painting and through the painting to the world of global trade. You learn about the felt hats which leads to 40 pages on the bea...more
This is a really interesting way to study history. Brook uses Vermeer's paintings to study the 17th century world, using objects within his paintings as starting points, going out into the world through them. There are a few main themes in this book, such as figuring out how different cultures were starting to blend together.
Another theme was the idea that the people of the 17th century world were becoming more and more connected. Despite their idea that the world, to them, was growi...more
Another theme was the idea that the people of the 17th century world were becoming more and more connected. Despite their idea that the world, to them, was growi...more
Premise: look carefully at paintings by Vermeer and you can find details that are "doors" into that world and reflect the culture, politics, arts, and even the weather patterns of the day.
My observations:
The Dutch East India Company was the WalMart of its day, bringing exotic goods from afar at such a rapid pace that the exotic became the everyday, at reasonable prices, and causing social change by the sheer size of the enterprise. Save money - live better -...more
My observations:
The Dutch East India Company was the WalMart of its day, bringing exotic goods from afar at such a rapid pace that the exotic became the everyday, at reasonable prices, and causing social change by the sheer size of the enterprise. Save money - live better -...more
I had to read this book for my world history class, and was dreading it ever so slightly, but once I got into tune with the author's writing style I actually found it an enjoyable read. Brook mixes stories with history and I can't believe how much I learned about a period I thought myself decently-versed in. My favorite chapter is "School for Smoking," just a personal note. :) Most of the book is very intriguing, and I certainly see a few normal, household objects in a different light ...more
This was a book that I should have loved, but it just didn't quite come together. A specialist in Chinese history attempted to write a book about the beginnings of the connected global world. His lens (or crutch, depending on your perspective) was the world of Vermeer in Delft and the objects that showed up in Vermeer's paintings. While the book was interesting, it felt disjointed and the chapters only loosely related to one another. I would recommend it to people that enjoy social or econom...more
A most interesting perspective on 17th century globalization framed using the device of paintings by Vermeer. Brook is a Chinese historian, and the progression of the Dutch advancing economically is described from the freedom from Spain through the peak of Dutch trading. Given Brook's orientation, it is not surprising, perhaps, that the connections to China at the time are more clearly developed than the basic situation of the Dutch. The chapters on commerce in tobacco and silver were the best. ...more
This fascinating book uses objects portrayed in a half-dozen Jan Vermeer paintings as portals into the rapidly globalizing world of the early-to-mid-17th century. From, say, the presence of a Ming porcelain bowl in a middle-class Dutch home, Brook extrapolates the chain of events that brought such an exotic object to a European household, from the logistic and technological difficulties of porcelain manufacture and sea trade; to the opening of political, economic, and social barriers that allowe...more
This is a fantastic book getting across the best of the new historiography of world history. Perhaps the use of the paintings doesn't really work to hold it all together, but it does let Professor Brook range widely, and that is what is key to putting a human face on the fact that the globe came together so amazingly in the 16th and 17th centuries.
I spend 10 lectures badly trying to do what Professor Brook accomplishes in this book: show the crossing of borders, the way that our hum...more
I spend 10 lectures badly trying to do what Professor Brook accomplishes in this book: show the crossing of borders, the way that our hum...more
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Interesting idea and profound historical facts, spiced up with some individual 'pirate and lost somewhere' stories. But it is too short, I expected more economic history, more Europe concerned trading routes and more background facts. It is definitely not written for historians, but it's a good book to start with and it might create fascination about early modern forms of what we call 'Globalization' today.
This was absolutely my kind of book. The author examines the intricacies of seventeenth-century international economics and trading patterns, through "windows" of Vermeer paintings and a few other pieces of art. Just my kind of eclectic, interdisciplinary exploration. The title caught my eye when The Freeman reviewed it, as Vermeer is my favorite Dutch artist, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
I would probably not have come across this if it were not that Dee recommended it. The strategy of using paintings as a way into talking about globalization in the 17th century is very clever and allows Brook to explore the huge changes in travel and commerce that were taking place at the time. I admit that the economics mostly just made my eyes cross (especially the chapter on silver), but nevertheless I learned a lot and will never think of the 17th century in quite the same way again!
Nice diverting pop history, pretty quick read. All about the ways that the world was becoming increasingly interconnected in the 1600s, with the Dutch and Portuguese and Spaniards and English and French and Chinese and Japanese and North and South America and Africa and all that business. Brook divides all this up in a neat way, by examining several paintings done in the Netherlands in the mid-1600s by Vermeer, and showing the clues to the expanding world trade that you can see in the paintings....more
Really liked this book and would have given it 4 stars except that I thought it fell down a bit in the last two chapters where he departed from the theme.
We study so much about the 17th century in this country, and then a little about what was going on in Latin America, but this book really ties that history in with what was going on in Europe and Asia, and a bit of Africa. It describes the beginnings of globalization in an interesting, readable way and connects the dots for someone ...more
We study so much about the 17th century in this country, and then a little about what was going on in Latin America, but this book really ties that history in with what was going on in Europe and Asia, and a bit of Africa. It describes the beginnings of globalization in an interesting, readable way and connects the dots for someone ...more
While this was an intriguing look at 17th century commerce, I was somewhat disappointed in this book. There was a great deal about trade in China and less about the paintings than I'd expected. Also, circling back to Vermeer's paintings for each chapter to explore a different product traded (tobacco, silver, porcelain...) seemed rather arbitrary and fragmentary even after the author took pains to explain his approach. I had the feeling he'd fixed on the paintings more as attractive poster chil...more
Una gran narrativa de sucesos centrales en el mundo durante el siglo XVII y como estos sentaron las bases para el mundo globalizado que hoy tenemos, el comercio de porcelana de China los esclavos africanos para cultivar el tabaco y explotar las minas de plata en América. todo recorriendo las bellas pinturas de Vermeer mostrando como el arte puede ser un reflejo de los cambios que viven las sociedades, de los paradigmas del momento y de los profundos y dramáticos eventos que generaron tantos camb...more
This is the way great nonfiction is done--the reader is allowed to tag along as the author follows his interests; wonderful when they match my interests and expand them. I learned how global the global economy was in the time of the Dutch Masters.
This book was very informative and some chapters were very interesting, such as The View From Delft, A Dish of Fruit and School for Smoking. However, the majority of the book was very drawn out and made for difficult reading. I found it very easy to get distracted and sometimes nodded off.
The author takes bits from Vermeer's artwork and talks about what that item represented at the time. It's history, rather than about Vermeer, for the most part. I didn't finish it because it strayed so far from Vermeer himself.
Super easy to read and enjoyable; I finished it in a few evenings. I am very interested in migration and the formation of the nation-state system, and the author explores both themes in accessible language.
To understand the making of the modern, this is a very useful book. The ascedacy and decline of the Dutch in the 17th centuray is described looking through the windows of Vermeer's paintings.
A look at the world in the 17th century through paintings by Vermeer. Something I would read for an international relations class. Definitely more of a world history than a Vermeer-centric book.
A most interesting perspective on 17th century globalization framed using the device of paintings by Vermeer. Brook is a Chinese historian, and the progression of the Dutch advancing economically is described from the freedom from Spain through the peak of Dutch trading. Given Brook's orientation, it is not surprising, perhaps, that the connections to China at the time are more clearly developed than the basic situation of the Dutch. The chapters on commerce in tobacco and silver were the bes...more
A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for
This book looks at half a dozen Vermeers and uses the artifacts in the pictures to kick off with history on the items in the pictures, from beaver hats, to smoking, to travel, silver, porcelin, all with a focus on China, which is the area of the expertise of the author. So it's not art history, more a history of the emergence of capitalism, international trade, the movement between east and west.
Sometimes, it feel slike we get along way from the art, the Vermeers, and soaked up in C...more
Sometimes, it feel slike we get along way from the art, the Vermeers, and soaked up in C...more
PI best of 2008
While I was reading this book for my fall seminar class, I can say it was an interesting book. I throughly enjoyed the connections between Vermeer's art and 17th century globalization. While I found certain sections to be rather dry, other sections were either entertaining or interesting enough that I wanted to take my time with them. If you read this book you may find yourself walking away with random facts bouncing around in your noggin.
Interesting way to look at History. He takes some paintings by Vermeer and uses them as a jumping off point for exploring items such as the tobacco trade, porcelain, exploration and other changes to 17th century Holland and the world around it.
Hmmm... nothign new for a geographer. Interesting, but tedious at times. Somewhere between an academic read and a popular lit read. I think this is what was caused me to give this a 3 start rating and not a four start rating.
Interesting look at how the objects from all over the world in Vermeer's paintings illustrate the extent of globalization in the 1600s. I was especially interested in the chapter about porcelain and Delft "china."
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