Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London

by Edited by Patrick O'Brien , Derek Keene , Marjolein 't Hart , Herman van der Wee

• ISBN13: 9780521594080
• ISBN10: 0521594081
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-06-11
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This innovative work in comparative urban history explores why outstanding achievements in material and intellectual culture in early modern Europe tended to cluster in certain maritime cities. Patrick O'Brien and his co-editors have assembled a team of eighteen distinguished historians from Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain, and North America, who have collaborated to make detailed comparisons of economic, architectural, artistic, publishing and scientific achievements in three renowned mercantile and imperial cities during their golden ages: Antwerp (c. 1492-1585), Amsterdam (c. 1585-1659) and London (c. 1660-1730). The book examines growth and fluctuations in the fortunes of all three cities in the context of broader trends in the growing urbanization of Europe's populations, cultures, societies and economies. The study is located in the histories of politics, warfare and culture in early modern Europe and offers fascinating insights to scholars and students of economic, social and cultural history.

Table of Contents

List of figures	viii
List of tables	x
List of contributors	xi
Part 1 Early modern cities as sources and sites for achievement
Reflections and mediations on Antwerp, Amsterdam and London in their golden ages	3	(36)
Patrick O'Brien
Part 2 Economic growth and demographic change
`No town in the world provides more advantages': economies of agglomeration and the golden age of Antwerp	39	(24)
Michael Limberger
Clusters of achievement: the economy of Amsterdam in its golden age	63	(18)
Cle Lesger
The economy of London, 1660--1730	81	(18)
Peter Earle
Part 3 Architecture and urban space
Antwerp in its golden age: `one of the largest cities in the Low Countries' and `one of the best fortified in Europe'	99	(29)
Piet Lombaerde
The glorious city: monumentalism and public space in seventeenth-century Amsterdam	128	(23)
Marjolein 'T Hart
Architecture and urban space in London	151	(22)
Judi Loach
Part 4 Fine and decorative arts
The fine and decorative arts in Antwerp's golden age	173	(13)
Hans Vlieghe
The rise of Amsterdam as a cultural centre: the market for paintings, 1580--1680	186	(24)
Marten Jan Bok
Cultural production and import substitution: the fine and decorative arts in London, 1660--1730	210	(23)
David Ormrod
Part 5 Books and publishing
Antwerp: books, publishing and cultural production before 1585	233	(16)
Werner Waterschoot
Metropolis of print: the Amsterdam book trade in the seventeenth century	249	(15)
Paul Hoftijzer
Printing, publishing and reading in London, 1660--1720	264	(23)
Adrian Johns
Part 6 Scientific and useful knowledge
Science for sale: the metropolitan stimulus for scientific achievements in sixteenth-century Antwerp	287	(18)
Geert Vanpaemel
Amsterdam as a centre of learning in the Dutch golden age, c. 1580--1700	305	(21)
Karel Davids
Philosophers in the counting-houses: commerce, coffee-houses and experiment in early modern London	326	(20)
Larry Stewart
Index	346