Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and
the Dawn of the Global World is a book by
the Canadian historian Professor Timothy Brook,
in which he explores the roots of world trade
in the 17th century through six paintings
by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer.
It focuses especially on growing ties between
Europe and the rest of the world and the impact
of China on the world, during what Brook sees
as an "age of innovation" and improvisation.
== Synopsis ==
Brook argues that globalization, which is
often taken to be a modern (i.e. late-20th/21st-century)
phenomenon, actually had its roots in the
17th century; and he states that it was his
intention to surprise his readers with this
information, that "people and goods and ideas
were moving around the world in ways that
their ancestors had no idea was possible."
The growth in trade and exploration was facilitated
in part by advances in navigation and in shipbuilding
technology and also, according to the author,
was driven along when European nations such
as "England, the Netherlands and France started
to fight their way into the trade."By studying
and analyzing the paintings of Johannes Vermeer,
beginning with his landscape View of Delft,
and examining the scant documents detailing
his life, the author builds up a picture of
the world in which Vermeer lived; and from
this he finds evidence of socioeconomic phenomena
and globalization. In the case of the port
in Delft in the Netherlands, for example,
he finds evidence of the Dutch East India
Company's operations. This is often said to
be the world's first multinational corporation,
which competing traders were forced to join;
it had quasi-governmental powers, including
the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties,
coin money, and establish colonies, and played
a powerful and prominent role in trade between
the Dutch and Asia, including China.The painting
entitled Officer and Laughing Girl, which
is shown on the front cover of the book and
to which the title alludes, speaks to Brook
of the interest people had in the world, which
is reflected in the maps of the world frequently
seen on walls in paintings, showing a patriotic
pride which went along with the emergence
of the Netherlands from Spanish occupation,
and the painting is also used to examine trade
between Europe and North America. The huge
felt hat itself, Brook says, is made of beaver
under-fur and the origin of that would be
via French traders operating in North America.
This being before the discovery of the Northwest
Passage, the French had been commissioned
to find a route to China, and the beaver fur
simply helped them "cover their costs." From
here, the narrative goes on to talk of other
commodities which were available in abundance
and traded in the Americas, such as sugar,
tobacco, copper, wood in the 18th century,
slaves from Africa, and the metallic artefacts
and guns which were given in exchange.In the
painting Girl Reading a Letter at an Open
Window, there is a large Chinese porcelain
bowl in the foreground (standing on a Turkish
carpet), and Brook uses this to introduce
the subject of trade with China. Chinese porcelain
was just becoming more widely available and
featured in many paintings. The porcelain
grew very popular in households in Vermeer's
time as its price came down and it became
affordable to less wealthy families. In sharp
contrast to the necessary outward-looking
gaze of countries in Europe, the stereotypical
view of China was that it had "an adequate
resource base for most of its needs, an advanced
technology and was not having to look outside
of itself for things that it needed." However,
Brook maintains that the Chinese did venture
out of their country to trade during lengthy
periods when they were not prohibited from
doing so (due to perceived threats to Chinese
authority or to Chinese people), and that
the Chinese simply wanted to control the terms
of their trade. They did not want traders
setting up colonies in their sovereign territory.
According to Brook, the Chinese not going
out exploring the world did put them at a
technological and linguistic disadvantage
as they had a very limited world view and
lacked experience of the increasingly cosmopolitan
world outside their borders. This wasn't so
much of a problem in Vermeer's time but was
to become more of an issue as Europe's empires
grew in the 18th century and 19th centuries.
=== Indra's net ===
In the book, the author uses the metaphor
of Indra's net:
Writing in The Spectator, Sarah Burton explains
that Brook uses this metaphor, and its interconnectedness,
"to help understand the multiplicity of causes
and effects producing the way we are and the
way we were." She adds: "In the same way,
the journeys through Brook's picture-portals
intersect with each other, at the same time
shedding light on each other.
== Reception ==
Writing in The Guardian, Kathryn Hughes describes
Vermeer's Hat as "an exhilarating book" and
"a brilliant attempt to make us understand
the reach and breadth of the first global
age." She states that "What Brook wants us
to understand [...] is that these domains,
the local and the transnational, were intimately
connected centuries before anyone came up
with the world wide web."Also in The Guardian,
Jerry Brotton describes Vermeer's Hat as "the
finest book on Vermeer I've read in years."
He states that "by deftly unravelling their
stories, he gives us a picture of Vermeer
unwittingly sitting in at the birth of the
modern global world" and concludes that "This
is a fabulous book that drags Vermeer away
from our complacent Eurocentric assumptions
of his insular domesticity."In the Literary
Review, Lisa Jardine describes the book as
an "enthralling" "jewel of a study".In the
Washington Post, Michael Dirda writes: "Vermeer's
Hat ... provides not only valuable historical
insight but also enthralling intellectual
entertainment."In The Independent, TH Barrett
states that "[Brook] is too good a scholar
to treat Vermeer's paintings as straightforward
windows into the past, but he does show us
how pictorial sources can open "doors" into
"corridors" linking up diverse regions of
the globe."Also in The Independent, speaking
of the way the author "teases out" detail
from the paintings, Lesley McDowell states
that "[he] shows, better than anyone I've
read so far, the truly subversive power of
detail – especially when it's brought to
the fore instead of filling in the background."Douglas
Smith writes in The Seattle Times "In Brook's
hands Vermeer's canvases, together with a
painting by a second-rate contemporary and
an old chipped Delft plate, are just bright
lures to catch our attention before he takes
us on his rich, suggestive tours of the 17th-century
world." He goes on to say: "In recounting
these tales of international trade, cultural
exchange and foreign encounter, 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."Peter Conrad, writing in
The Observer, is more critical. He is of the
opinion that "Brook is so intent on cost and
the grim injustice of expropriation that he
can seem crassly unresponsive, indifferent
to the almost beatific peace of the paintings"
and "knows everything about price, but rather
less about value."
== Awards ==
In 2009, Vermeer's Hat won Brook the Mark
Lynton History Prize from Columbia University
in New York, worth $10,000 (U.S.). The prize
is one of the Lukas Prize Project awards.
The book was described as a "bold, original
and compulsively readable work of history."
== Gallery ==
== 
See also ==
Age of Discovery
Baroque
Dutch Golden Age
Early modern Europe
Major explorations after the Age of Discovery
== Notes ==
== Foreign translations ==
Brook, Timothy (13 January 2010). Le chapeau
de Vermeer : Le XVIIe siècle à l'aube de
la mondialisation (in French). Demange, Odile
(trans.). France: Payot. ISBN 2-228-90493-7.
Brook, Timothy (November 2010). De hoed van
Vermeer. De Gouden Eeuw en het ontwaken van
de wereldeconomie (in Dutch). Naaĳkens, Els
(trans.). 
The Netherlands: Wereldbibliotheek. ISBN 9789028423558.
== Further study ==
=== 
Other reviews ===
Welfringer, Arnauld (13 January 2010). "T.
Brook, Le chapeau de Vermeer. Le XVIIe siècle
à l'aube de la mondialisation" (in French).
Fabula: la recherche en littérature. Retrieved
2010-01-25.
=== Interviews ===
Roberts, Russ (February 19, 2008). "Brook
on Vermeer's Hat and the Dawn of Global Trade".
EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty.
Staff (December 2007). "Interview with Timothy
Brook". Essential Vermeer. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
== External links ==
Hardback edition at Bloomsbury Press
Paperback edition at Profile Books
Essential Vermeer
