the Golden Age – the period of exceptional dynamism and growth, roughly the length of the seventeenth century, during which the Dutch led the world not just in the production of fine art but also in trade, science, philosophy and architecture. At a time when much of the rest of Europe was mired in crisis, one of its smallest countries had managed, within a relatively short period, to produce Rembrandt and Vermeer, inspire Locke and Voltaire, build the canals and townhouses of Amsterdam, and establish an empire that stretched around the world.
