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Title: The Embarrassment of Riches : An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age by Simon Schama ISBN: 0-679-78124-2 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 December, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Nurturing a new republic
Comment: From a rich foundation of material and an exquisite writing style, Schama guides us through the formative years of the Dutch Republic. The politics of that creation, however, he leaves to others. Instead, he addresses the underlying conditions of Dutch society of the period. At the outset, he decrees he will avoid Culture in favour of culture. This welcome departure makes this book a treasure of information. However, it isn't a volume for the novice. Much background history in Enlightenment Europe in general and the Dutch role in particular, is required before tackling this book.
That a beached whale can become a cultural artefact seems aberrant at first glance. The Dutch, as Calvinists, could find a moral message in a wide disparity of events. Whale beachings proved no exception. Pamphlets, articles, even books could make use of cetacean corpses to invoke metaphors of nationalism, extravagance, profit, indulgence and divine messages. Schama shows how easily the besieged Protestant nation at the edge of Catholic Europe found means to justify and define their existence. This form of thinking and expression gave the Dutch strength to sustain a novel experiment in society and nationhood. It also refutes the suggestion that the Dutch were governed by a dogmatist Calvinism. Flexibility and tolerance, no matter how often challenged, remained the foundation of Dutch culture. Against all odds, the Republic survived and flourished.
The flourishing becomes the pivotal point in Schama's account. The influx of riches from global trade challenged aspects of Calvinist values. Extravagance was condemned, but not impaired. The lure of commerce was strong and the accumulation of wealth too rapid to be hampered. Calvinist ministers might rail at the influx of gold, but their wrath was constrained by a society manifestly stable. Excesses remained rare as the burghers pursued their wealth soberly. Ostentation, Schama notes, didn't mean extravagance.
As Schama clearly describes, flourishing trade opened minds as well as purses. Opinions flourished with bank accounts and the Dutch Enlightenment attracted exiles from more dogmatic societies. He pulls together many threads in weaving his tapestry of Dutch culture, enhanced by numerous illustrations conveying the wealth of allegorical images used to influence social and national mores. The varieties of thinking meant that the Dutch Republic came into existence without an underlying ideology or dogma. Even the Republic's borders remained too fluid to establish a certain national identity from them.
If there are faults in Schama's sweeping account, they are few, but significant. An introductory chapter on the chronology of events would ease the novice's entry to this weighty narrative. His focus, while a needed supplement to general histories, is a bit tight. He spends many pages recounting the history of a single midwife as exemplary. On the other hand, the role of immigrants is given short shrift. Jewish contacts in Iberia and the New World were an important facet of economic growth. Trade with the Far East is granted only marginally more attention. As the roots of "the embarrassment of riches" one would expect more attention be given them. He ignores many major thinkers, perhaps slotting them into his disdained Culture. Yet many major figures of the era go begging for ink space in his book - Spinoza, Descartes and others were not writing for themselves. Even posthumously, their opinions affected the thinking of literate Dutch - and in a burgher society, there were many of those. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful view on Dutch culture and insight on ours
Comment: Ever wonder why London is a great metropolis? Well, the development of Amsterdam as a trading hub had a lot to do with it. This book goes into the intertwining of Dutch, English (and thus American) history and gives more information than you ever thought possible about Dutch culture.
We usually think of tulips, windmills, cheese and wooden shoes when asked about the Netherlands. Most people don't know that during the late 1600's and during the 1700's, the Dutch were the powerhouse of Europe. They defined Trade with a capital "T" and spread goods, fads (tulip speculation--a bit like the dot-com pheonomenon of the 90's) and much, much more. The Dutch wealth explosion also created the true middle class, and the idea that wealth is created and not inherited.
To understand American culture and history, you'd be well advised to read Simon Schama's book. It's enjoyable and sheds a lot of light on our own heritage.
Rating: 4
Summary: a glutton's delight: too much, but oh so good
Comment: Massive and rambling, this is a history book without very finely drawn parameters. Schama, in my reading, wanted to cover the whole of a unique humanist culture - tolerant, intelligent, united by outside threats and not so much by Calvinism, and loosely structured in the era of absolutism. Focusing largely on paintings, prints, and writings, Schama offers a dazzling tour - the only trouble is, he seems to want to cover everything, and in the process the thread of narrative is lost from the very beginning in all the luscious details. While it is far better than Landscape and Memory in terms of unity of theme, there are long passages where it is near-impossilbe to tell where schama wants to go or what he really has to say.
At its best, the book offers lovely descriptions of such varied subjects as midwives, a brief fascination with beached whales, sex, diet, and charity, to name just a few. Many of the details along the way that need explanation are very briefly referred to, such as the 80-year War of independence from Spain, the difficulties with France as Louis XIV sought to expand his national territory, and the fabulous technological achievement of reclaiming much of the land from sea silt. The reader is treated to a grand political experiment along with the art. WHen I next go there, my experience will be immeasurably enriched.
However, at its worst, Schama appeared to me to be showing off his erudition, which is truly incredible and hence describing way way too much while not covering more of the basics. While this certainly points to the weaknesses of my own education in history, I doubt that many readers would know the mechanisms of Dutch economic superiority or why the Tulip mania could occur there and not in Antwerp or Venice. Instead, for example, Schama devotes over 30 pages to describing how much they ate, drank, and smoked referring innumerable obscure artists and interpreting all of the details of composition and subject matter in individual works. Yes, the prose is luminous, but why so awfully much??! It is really more of a multi-layered essay that will have to be re-read, if the reader has time and the will to invest in it.
Moreover, the end of the book is rushed and becomes less and less coherent at the moment when the reader is hoping that it will somehow get all tied together with an overview. The references in the last 100 pages become more obscure and recondite, requiring ever greater knowledge on the part of the reader as explanations disappear. And the epilogue did absolutely nothing for me and was for the most part incomprehensible.
Recommended with these caveats in mind. It is not for beginners! But the pleasures are many and it will change your view of Holland forever, as a great book should.
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Title: Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama ISBN: 067940256X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 16 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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Title: Citizens : A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama ISBN: 0679726101 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 17 March, 1990 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: Landscape And Memory by Simon Schama ISBN: 0679735127 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 05 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806 by Jonathan Israel ISBN: 0198207344 Publisher: Clarendon Pr Pub. Date: August, 1998 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Vermeer and His Milieu by John Michael Montias ISBN: 0691002894 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 January, 1991 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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