Going Dutch
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I really loved Lisa Jardine's 'Going Dutch'. Compelling, thought-provoking and meticulously researched, this is a fascinating study of a larger culture that connected England and Holland in the seventeenth century. Beautifully written and beautifully illustrated, I was completely captivated.
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Misleading and disappointing.
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Do not buy this book because of its title or its dust cover picture. These appear to have been designed to sell the book, and are misleading.
"Lisa Jardine tests the traditional view that the rise of England as a world power took place at the expense of the Dutch. She finds instead that it was a handing on of the baton of cultural and intellectual supremacy to Briton....." These words from inside the dust cover contradict the book's title. England did not rob Holland of its glory. And Lisa stole the "Going Dutch" title from other earlier books.
The book is a series of essays - on the Dutch invasion of 1688, and much correspondance is used to illustrate cultural exchanges in art, horticulture, and science. There are lots of pictures, a good bibliography, in nice print, on good quality paper.
Watch out for garbled sentances, some contradictory, and there is little to link people and events in one essay with where they are mentioned in another.It seems as though this book was written in a hurry and as such it does not do justice either to its important topics or its distinguished author.
It is disappointing and irritating that such a well known author with access to broad-based research facilities fails to produce a book worthy of her resources or of her talents. Briton is well known for its histories. This book does not add to that reputation.
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