Innocence Abroad
The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570–1670

Innocence Abroad explores the encounter between the Netherlands and the New World in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Benjamin Schmidt (Author)

9780521804080, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 November 2001

482 pages, 48 b/w illus.
23.6 x 16.2 x 3.5 cm, 0.793 kg

'This is a book with the plot of Animal Farm, George Orwell's great Trotskyite attack on the history of the Soviet Union … Schmidt's book is essentially one of intellectual history, or at least of the history of representations … without major flaws … he also provides much basis for comparative insights.' South African Historical Journal

Innocence Abroad explores the process of encounter that took place between the Netherlands and the New World in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The 'discovery' of America coincided with the foundation of the Dutch Republic, a correspondence of much significance for the Netherlands. From the opening of their Revolt against Hapsburg Spain through the climax of their Golden Age, the Dutch looked to America - in political pamphlets and patriotic histories, epic poetry and allegorical prints, landscape painting and decorative maps - for a means of articulating a new national identity. This book demonstrates how the image of America fashioned in the Netherlands, and especially the twin themes of 'innocence' and 'tyranny', became integrally associated with the evolving political, moral and economic agenda. It investigates the energetic Dutch response to the New World while examining the operation of geographic discourse and colonial ideology within the culture of the Dutch Golden Age.

Acknowledgments
Preface: cultural geography in an age of encounter
1. The Dutch discovery of America
2. Revolutionary geography
3. Innocence and commerce abroad
4. A loss of innocence
5. The rise and fall of America, or tyranny abroad
Epilogue: the Dutch and their new worlds
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], History of the Americas [HBJK], European history [HBJD]