The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age

About this book

This is the book that made Simon Schamas reputation when first published in 1987. A historical masterpiece it is an epic account of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age of Rembrandt and van Diemen. In this brilliant work that moves far beyond the conventions of social or cultural history Simon Schama investigates the astonishing case of a peoples self-invention. He shows how in the 17th-century a modest assortment of farming fishing and shipping communities without a shared language religion or government transformed themselves into a formidable world empire -- the Dutch republic.