SOURCE: “The Burgher Kings,” in Washington Post Book World, June 28, 1987, pp. 1, 13.

In the following review, Rybczynski offers a positive assessment of The Embarrassment of Riches.

Like all good histories, Simon Schama's masterly investigation of Dutch culture in the 17th century—its so-called Golden Age—illuminates not only the past but also the present. Which is not to say that this book makes any facile analogies; Schama—a Harvard professor—is much too serious a historian for that. But the question that he asks in The Embarrassment of Riches is one that has recognizably modern overtones: How does a culture cope with sudden economic success?

We are all fascinated by the lives of the rich and famous, and in the 17th century nobody was as rich, or as famously rich, as the Dutch. Everything they touched, from Japanese porcelain and malacca pepper to herrings and cheese, turned to gold...