We all look to our past to define our present but we don t always realize that our view of the past is shaped by subsequent events It s easy to forget that the Dutch dominated the world s oceans and trade in the seventeenth century when our cultural imagination conjures up tulips and wooden shoes instead of spices and slavery This book examines the Dutch so called Golden Age though its artistic and architectural legacy recapturing the global dimensions of this period by looking beyond familiar artworks to consider exotic collectibles and trade goods and the ways in which far flung colonial cities were made to look and feel like home Using the tools of art history to approach questions about memory history and how cultures define themselves this book demonstrates the centrality of material and visual culture to understanding history and cultural identity