In 1596, a Javanese leader gave a cassowary to a Dutch ship captain, who upon his return to the Dutch Republic presented the bird to the States General. The bird was thrice gifted across oceans and between states, ending up in the collection of Rudolf II in Prague. In Amsterdam, the curious could pay a fee to see the creature, and artists and natural historians observed and described this living wonder (21–23). Early modern rarities like this cassowary existed at the intersection of various lines of inquiry, just as this book crosses today's fields of the histories of art, science, politics, and gift exchange. Swan draws on a wide array of sources: accounts in manuscripts and early printed books, visual and material culture, and a range of scholarship expanded upon in detailed endnotes.

Swan's prose brings to life encounters in the Dutch Republic and overseas, as she introduces foreign visitors, travelers, and diplomats who were captured in text and images as they exchanged the types of goods discussed and depicted in this richly illustrated volume. Diplomatic gifts were carefully recorded in lists with varying level of detail. Sometimes an item can still be identified, like a unique suit of armor (fig. 109), while more often only a representative image stands in, like a woodcut of a Seychelles nut vessel (fig. 85), as many documented gifts were consumed, regifted, or reworked, and are therefore lost to us today. Swan asserts, following Arjun Appadurai and others, that these gifts have social lives beyond the moments documented in these inventories, and that so many of the illustrated items are currently in European collections suggests many goods gifted abroad eventually returned, and similar objects also circulated in European channels.

The title, Rarities of These Lands, encompasses the tension of these goods. They are exotic, foreign wonders, but at the same time domestic, as Dutch diplomats sought to underscore a particularly Dutch access to global markets. More interesting still are those rarities manufactured at home, but inspired by, and often incorporating material from, the East Indies, like the lacquer work of Willem Kick (fig. 114). This volume focuses on the first half of the seventeenth century, when the Dutch were simultaneously establishing their prowess in world trade and seeking recognition as an independent nation among European powers. While this is a global story, the view here is primarily on voyages east, beginning with Jan Huygen van Linschoten and the first Dutch voyages, through the first half-century of the Dutch East India Company. These parameters encompass a period where commerce and diplomacy are inextricably intertwined, and Dutch profits in Asia set the stage for three more centuries as a colonial power.

With such an expansive tale to tell, Swan examines her material through several strategies. After an overview in preface and introduction, chapter 1 examines Amsterdam as an emporium of global goods, and chapter 2 takes us into the homes of Amsterdam's wealthy to see these goods in use or on display. Chapter 3 examines the networks that brought these goods to collectors. Chapters 4 and 5 consider the movement of emissaries, first foreigners coming to the Netherlands, and then Dutchmen travelling elsewhere. Chapter 6 examines in detail the 1612–13 Dutch gift to the Ottoman sultan, and chapter 7 focuses on one item in that gift, the bird of paradise. Chapter 8 covers the well-known Dutch role in the early modern porcelain trade, but with a twist: Swan demonstrates that many of these items were not, in fact, freely traded, but were booty of Dutch piracy. Several characters appear in multiple chapters, and a thorough index assists the reader to follow them. It's a sign of the evolving field of Netherlandish studies that the familiar figure of Rembrandt is evoked throughout, when he is but a minor player in this story. Fans of Swan's work will recognize some of this material—versions of chapters 2, 5, 6, and 8 have been published elsewhere—but it is a delight to have them all in one place.