Maritime Empires and the Genesis of Global Trade

The 17th century marked the dawn of a globalized world where trade networks transformed isolated regions into an interconnected web driven by the circulation of commodities such as silver, porcelain, and beaver pelts. Historian Timothy Brook uses the paintings of Johannes Vermeer as portals to decode these global links, demonstrating how objects like an officer's felt hat or a blue-and-white dish connect a quiet Dutch studio to the violent expansion in North America and markets in China. This era, initially sparked by Portuguese and Spanish exploration and later dominated by the corporate power of the Dutch East India Company, fundamentally reshaped geopolitics and integrated distant cultures through commerce and conflict.