Vermeer’s Hat

Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (Anglais) Relié – 3 juillet 2008
Author: Timothy Brook ID: 184668112X

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Timothy Brook has a unique capability to discover links and political, social and economic dependencies starting from very unusual beginnings. This book about a famous painter is an excellent example. The author refers to these starting points "windows". How did het get to tobacco? Vermeer lived in Delft and the author visited a museum where he saw a blue white ceramic plate that was fake Chinese, painted in Delft by a Dutchman that included the figure of a Chinese man with a long pipe feeling in heaven.

The consumption of tobacco grew explosively in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The Europeans discovered smoking in America and exported it all over the world. China became soon the largest market. Tobacco was delivered to China directly from Mexico via Manila in what are now the Philippines, from the America’s east coast directly via Macao in India, and from Europe by several harbor stops in East Asia.

The finest and most desirable tobacco was produced in what are now the Southern States of North America. Tobacco produced enormous wealth for all involved, for the growers, the transporters, and the traders at all levels and for the government though taxation.

Tobacco was unique in that all classes, men and women consumed it. One emperor at an early stage passed a law that anybody found to be selling tobacco would be decapitated. In the beginning it was considered healthy, to cure many illnesses and to create a positive relationship between people smoking together. At a later stage tobacco leaves were dipped in the sap of poppies that had even a stronger impact. The next step was to bypass the tobacco leaves and replace it with opium leading to the opium wars and other disasters.

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