HULSENBOOM, Paul.

Ablasserdam, 2023. 8vo. xxi,+ (blank),+ 570 pp.+ loose bookmark Illustrations page 441-570. Sewn as issued. Dedication to Steve Murdoch. Dissertation from Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.”In the seventeenth century, relations between Poland and the Dutch Republic covered virtually all areas of life, including commerce, diplomacy, scholarship, and religion. Consequently, testimonies of the time bear witness to the ways in which Dutch and Polish authors, artists, and artisans imagined each other. In this PhD thesis, Paul Hulsenboom uses travel accounts, poems, letters, prints, paintings, and numerous other sources to analyse these mutual Dutch-Polish perceptions. Offering a new and overdue perspective on the history of early modern Europe, Hulsenboom examines a complex and often contradictory range of cultural representations: from the United Provinces as an affluent land of wonder to the Dutch population as Calvinist peasants, and from Poland as a grain-rich trading partner to the Poles themselves as bellicose savages. In addition, he considers the mental mapping of Europe, arguing that the seventeenth marked a critical stage in the seperation and definition of East and West”.