Vermeer's Hat
The Seventeenth Century And The Dawn Of The Global World
- Publisher
- Penguin Group Canada
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2013
- Category
- Baroque & Rococo, General, 17th Century
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780143167693
- Publish Date
- Oct 2013
- List Price
- $21.00
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Description
In one painting, a military officer in a Dutch sitting room flirts with a laughing girl. In another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. Vermeer’s paintings haunt us with their beauty and mystery—what stories lay behind these stunningly rendered moments? As Timothy Brook shows us, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually offer a remarkable view of a rapidly expanding world. The dashing officer’s hat is of beaver fur from Canada, while the pieces of silver, mined in Peru, might be used to purchase the Chinese porcelain seen in other Vermeer paintings. Moving outward from Vermeer’s studio, Brook traces the web of trade that was spreading across the globe in the seventeenth century. The wharves of Holland , wrote a French visitor, were “an inventory of the possible.” Vermeer’s Hat shows just how rich this inventory was, and how the urge to acquire such things was refashioning the world more powerfully than we have yet understood.
About the author
Timothy Brook is the award-winning author or editor of twelve books on China, including Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement and Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952. He is the editor of a six-volume series on China published by Harvard University Press, and held the Shaw Chair in Chinese Studies at Oxford. He is Professor of History at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
Editorial Reviews
“In his highly readable book … Brook offers as fascinating an account of economic history as you’re likely to encounter.” - National Post
“A fascinating approach to cultural history, providing new ways of thinking about the origins of commonplace objects.” - Entertainment Weekly
“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