Vermeer's Hat : The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (Paperback)

from jcbrunner

Timothy Brook uses Vermeer's paintings as a starting point to explain the growing global trade in the 17th century. While Vermeer painted only Dutch people, mostly from the city of Delft itself, he shows products from around the world, from America, Africa and Asia - only Australia was still miss...

from Limelite

In the manner of James Burke's "Connections" for PBS, Brook tells the fascinating story of European contact and establishing commercial trade partnerships with people and cultures from Asia to Canada. Highly readable history of the Dutch East India Company, European politics, and the mutual excha...

from JBD1

A good microhistorical study using Vermeer's paintings (and a couple other pieces of artwork) to explore the connections between Europe and Asia (mostly China). There are a few moments where it gets too far afield and the attempted connections are too tenuous, but it was an engaging read.

from heggiep

Brook guides us through studies of numerous, mostly Vermeer, paintings and objets d'art; and from each one chooses what he calls a 'door' to help us understand the rapidly globalizing world of the seventeenth century. A clever, imaginative, and thought-provoking book.

from Eyejaybee

An intriguing slant on history, Timothy Brook tells of how he first became acquainted with the works of Vermeer as a teenager touring around Holland. He selects five of the artist's paintings, along with three other works by Vermeer's contemporaries, and looks at various items depicted therein. H...