Understanding the Dutch Golden Age from the Unusual Perspective of Gisbert Heeck

by Derek Dwight Anderson

This volume in a series of world history case studies utilizes the compelling but little-known journal of a surgeon in the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to explore the social history of seventeenth century Holland, South Africa, Indonesia, and Thailand. Gisbert Heeck’s vivid account stands as one of the great travel narratives of his era and provides us with a unique lens to explore early modern life, including everything from the history of Western medical science to mercantilism, from the tradition of Dutch still life painting to Jewish life in Amsterdam. What emerges is a rich portrait of a global economy and the people who participate in it.

39 pages, Paperback

Published October 25, 2022

About the author

Derek Dwight Anderson is an independent high school history teacher and librarian with almost 40 years of teaching experience. He is also a dedicated world traveler who loves museums, large and small. Improbable Voices is Anderson's first book and represents the cumulative integration of his professional and personal interests.

Anderson holds a B.A. from Bates College and a Master of Library and Information Science from San José State University. He also studied at the University of Edinburgh. A senior full time faculty member at Marin Academy in San Rafael, California, Anderson lives with his partner in Sausalito. He is currently teaching an interdisciplinary world history course that integrates history, art history, and studio art.

Reviews

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very weird book, that is hardly a book at all. It is a chapter from one of his bigger books broken out of that book and sold as a single book. Thus it is very short. It also has the feeling of being a small piece of something larger (which it is, of course), but, without that context, it never really makes sense.