In Praise of Ordinary People

1. Introduction
Margaret Jacob, Catherine Secretan

Part I. A New Self-Perception

2. The “Simple Burgher” of D. V. Coornhert (1522–1590): A Dutch Freethinker Opens the Door to a New Age
Dorothee Sturkenboom

3. Common People as Individuals: Hobbes’s Normative Approach to the Ordinary Mind
Luc Foisneau

4. News as a Path to Independence: Merchant Correspondence and the Exchange of News during the Dutch Revolt
Jesse Sadler

Part II. The Capabilities of Ordinary People and the Birth of the Commercial and Industrial World

5. “Ordinary” People and Philosophers in the Laboratories and Workshops of the Early Industrial Revolution
Larry Stewart

6. Accounting and Accountability in Dutch Civic Life
Jacob Soll

Part III. New Approaches to the Populist Voice

7. The People in Politics: Early Modern England and the Dutch Republic Compared
Maarten Prak

8. The Populist Voice of the Early Enlightenment
Margaret C. Jacob

9. “This Fleshlike Isle”: The Voluptuous Body of the People in Dutch Pamphlets, Novels, and Plays, 1660–1730
Inger Leemans

10. Ordinary People in the New World: The City of Amsterdam, Colonial Policy, and Initiatives from Below, 1656–1664
Frans Blom, Henk Looijesteijn

Part IV. Forging the Individual

11. Depression and Evangelicalism in the Family of Esther Tuke
Phyllis Mack

12. Self-Discipline and the Struggle for the Middle in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Matthew Kadane

Avainsanat: History, European History, Modern History, History of the Middle East, Social History, History of Britain and Ireland, Cultural History