Context:

Tom explicitly mentions this as 'the book that got me interested in it' regarding Dutch history, noting it was Schama's first great book from the late 80s and that he read it at university. He describes it as 'a brilliant portrait of the Dutch Republic in its golden age' and references it multiple times throughout the episode.

Context:

Referenced as a historical 'household manual' that Simon Schama quotes from in The Embarrassment of Riches. Tom notes that this manual 'overtly compares the weekly kind of routine of housekeeping to the rituals that you might get in a church.'