Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London (review)

This book, the fruit of an international collaborative effort, represents a rare undertaking to generate a comparative and multidisciplinary study of cities in early modern Europe. At the core of this work stands the question, Why did certain kinds of achievement cluster in maritime cities of early modern Europe? Achievement could refer to any number of accomplishments and contexts. Reflecting a fundamentally economic orientation, this inquiry focuses on three cities that succeeded each other as centers of commercial might in the early modern northwest— Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London. All essays "connect above all with metanarratives concerned with material progress" (6). Six sections ranging in time and place explore aspects of economic (Michael Limberger, Clé Lesger, Peter Earle), architectural (Piet Lombaerde, Marjolein 't Hart, Judi Loach), artistic (Hans Vlieghe, Marten Jan Bok, David Ormrod), publishing (Werner Waterschoot, Paul Hoftijzer, Adrian Johns), and scientific achievements (Geert Vanpaemel, Karel Davids, Larry Stewart).

The useful introduction links these themes and qualifies arguments that are necessarily both too broad and too narrow. The essays, as is to be expected, are uneven in quality. Some of the contributors focus on investigating the constellations of factors that produced "the golden ages" of Antwerp, Amsterdam, or London. Others give more analytical weight to assessing the nature of particular cultural or economic endeavors, and, in subtle ways, question or undercut the very notion of achievement. Some of the chapters are partly based on primary research. All of the essays are, to some extent, synthetic in nature, and therefore useful to general audiences, as well as to specialists in the sub-field of early modern urban history.

Although the thematic range of the collection is impressive, the orientation toward the economic underpinnings of urban success excluded certain discussions that might have appealed to scholars interested in the broader aspects of the shift to modernity. A number of the contributors write about the role of religious and political conditions and institutions, but the collection contains no comparative treatment of these elements in the context of urban achievements. Why did the editors decide not to include such social themes as "health, security, education and welfare" (5). Moreover, the essays, though they juxtapose a series of dynamic urban contexts and highlight common themes, generally give more attention, as the editors indicate, to detail, locality, and contingency. No clear methodology emerges, and only a few general conclusions, beyond the consensus that the golden ages of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London were not analogous, being more pronounced in some fields than others.

A number of themes, apart from material progress, run through the book and could have been explored further. How much did achievement rely on transformations in social spaces, for example, from the Bourse to the coffeehouses, and what are the implications about the changing nature of urban space in the early modern era? Which institutions served as the anchors for the accomplishments and as definers of those accomplishments, and to what extent is the present collection influenced by those norms, to the exclusion of others? Should questions of early modern achievement focus on urban centers? To a certain extent, their achievements cannot be understood without the wider context of urban networks and growing state frameworks, as well as the expanding Atlantic economy. Finally, what role did coincidence play in rise of "great" cities and "golden ages"? The essays included in the collection contain useful suggestions for further archival explorations and comparative work in these and other directions.