Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century And The Dawn Of The Global World - Softcover

Brook, Timothy

3.85

2,397 ratings by Goodreads

9780143167693: Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century And The Dawn Of The Global World

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143167693 ISBN 13: 9780143167693

Publisher: Penguin Canada, 2013

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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.

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About the Author:

Timothy Brook is the author or editor of twelve books on China , as well as the award-winning The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China . He is currently chair, Republic of China, with the Department of History and Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia.

Review:

“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

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