Vermeer's hat The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world

Timothy Brook, 1951-

Book - 2008

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Subjects
Published
New York : Bloomsbury Press : Distributed to the trade by Macmillan 2008.
Language
English
Main Author
Timothy Brook, 1951- (-)
Edition
1st U.S. ed
Physical Description
272 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (chiefly col.), maps ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-262) and index.
ISBN
9781596914445
  • List of Illustrations and Maps
  • 1. The View from Delft
  • 2. Vermeer's Hat
  • 3. A Dish of Fruit
  • 4. Geography Lessons
  • 5. School for Smoking
  • 6. Weighing Silver
  • 7. Journeys
  • 8. Endings: No Man is an Island
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix. Chinese and Japanese Publications
  • Recommended Reading and Sources
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

In this well-researched volume, Brook, Oxford historian of China, presents a unique, insightful view of the early stages of globalization. But rather than begin his analysis in Shanghai, as one might expect, Brook focuses on 17th-century Delft, a smallish town on the outskirts of The Hague that was home to the great Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-75). Brook's reason for doing so quickly becomes clear. Throughout his study, Brook directs careful attention to a handful of seemingly mundane objects present in Vermeer's paintings. He masterfully traces Vermeer's porcelains, tobacco, slaves, furs, species, and spices to the Americas, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and China. The resulting book is much more than another study of the European companies' rise to greatness. Brook produces a seamless treatment of the rapidly globalizing 17th-century world that emphasizes connectivity over agency. The volume's careful production, up-to-date research, and engaging prose make it especially suited for use in the growing number of world history courses, both at introductory and more advanced levels. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers, lower-division undergraduates and above. S. C. Levi Ohio State University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

What is it with authors naming their books after famous painters and their clothing (or body parts)? It's grown to epidemic proportions, and in this informative yet at times plodding book, Brook, an Oxford don, has caught the bug. We can forgive him for the trendy title, because he accomplishes his task decoding the way Vermeer's works provide a host of clues about the expanding economic power of the Netherlands as a key nexus of seventeenth-century international trade routes with authority and economy. Still, his pedagogical tone can be off-putting, almost to the point of feeling like condescension. (Like many a classroom lecturer, he's always telling us what he's going to tell us, then telling us, then telling us what he told us.) And it's a bit disappointing that Brook says so little about the painter's art beyond its journalistic and sociological content. He's no Simon Schama, and doesn't pretend to be, but we read on, hopefully.--Nance, Kevin Copyright 2007 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

Brook (Chinese studies, Oxford Univ.; Confusions of Pleasure) takes a distinctive look at the global economy and world trade in the 17th century in this captivating work. He uses works of art, in particular by the Dutch painter Vermeer, as windows into that specific time in Delft (Vermeer's hometown and home to a chamber of the Dutch East India Company ) and as conduits into other aspects of the emerging world. Through specific paintings such as Officer and Laughing Girl and Woman Holding a Balance, Brook takes the reader on adventures across countries, continents, and trade routes in the era's quest for beaver pelts, Chinese porcelain (i.e., china), tobacco, and silver, and shows men and women caught up in the "whirlpool of global movement." This book will certainly make you look differently at Vermeer's paintings, as you imagine the greater context of the time period and ponder the acquisition of seemingly minor objects. An insightful read for historians and art historians alike and a fine guide into the rewards of studying material culture. Recommended for both academic and public libraries.-Susanne Markgren, SUNY at Purchase Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Details in the noted Dutch artist's paintings lead readers through doorways into the period when the world was becoming increasingly interconnected. Brook (Chinese Studies/Oxford Univ.; Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China, 2005, etc.) begins several decades ago, when he crashed his bicycle near Delft. This happy accident led to his initial viewing of Vermeer's grave in a local church, and eventually to this book. The author's narrative strategy is effective and illuminating. He first discusses Vermeer's View of Delft, directing attention to the roofline of the Dutch East India Company--from which Brook advances the interesting story of the company's history and its major role in early globalization. The eponymous chapter, perhaps the book's strongest, uses Vermeer's Officer and Laughing Girl to describe and analyze the North American beaver trade. The officer sports a large hat made of felt, which was manufactured from the beaver's underfur. Brook enriches the scene with background material on relations between indigenous North Americans and the rapacious invaders, which inevitably led to bloodshed. (A graphic description of a ritual torture makes rough reading.) Subsequent chapters range over vast geographical and cultural terrain, examining objects and people in paintings by Vermeer and a few contemporaries, stressing throughout their global implications. In such fashion, we learn much--occasionally too much--about Chinese porcelain, Delft pottery, globes, Jesuits and Dominicans in China, the differences between Chinese and European soups, the tobacco and opium trades, African slavery, the emergence of silver as the most desired metal and the spread of prized objects around the shrinking globe. A magic-carpet conducted by a genial, learned host. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.