Essay on Vermeer s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World by Timothy Brook.

Write an essay discussing the use of primary sources in Timothy Brook's Vermeert Hat.

Choosing at least three different primary sources discuss the nature of those sources, how the author employs them, and what you think these primary sources can reveal to us about the early modern period.

Also be sure to discuss the sources in light of what you see as the author's main theme or argument in the book.

This essay should be about three pages long, typed and double-spaced. Please have a title for your essay.

In discussing the primary sources you might ask the following types of questions:-

What is the nature of the source? Is it a text, material object, and of what type?

Who made or wrote the source? What kind of person wrote or made it (status, level of wealth, gender, position, etc)? that were their intentions?

Is the source prescriptive or descriptive? Does it suggest how something should be or does it describe how things are (On Good Manners is prescriptive because it suggests how people should behave, whereas a census record is descriptive because it describes an existing population)?

What are the limitations of the sources you have discussed? Does the author use them in an imaginative or unusual way? Does the author misinterpret the source or miss something you think is critical.

My recommendation is to pick different types of sources and write about each. You can choose a painting, an archaeological site (shipwreck), and a text the author uses. This is just a suggestion.

Make some overall point about what we know and don't know about this period.

You can read the book strategically. Look at the chapter headings, think about what the book is trying to do. Read some parts more thoroughly than others when there is a source you would like to discuss.

Just rely on your own words and thoughts! Do not use any outside sources. The use of outside sources will result in a five point deduction.