As a contribution to the series Elements in Histories of Emotions and the Senses, the multi-authored volume Marketing Violence joins the series’ other elements in engaging with the expansive social, economic, and cultural contexts in which emotions and the senses participate. The book examines the visual culture of the early modern Dutch Republic and the influence of depictions of violence on the collective understanding of Dutch consumers. The authors deploy the term ‘affective economies’ to characterize the mediating influence of such violent imagery on the Republic’s capitalist society. In this model of colonial capitalism, media played a pivotal role in cultivating demand. The authors argue that one way they did so was by deploying affect, or the ability to evoke strong emotional reactions in their viewers, thereby stimulating demand and establishing communal attachment. The authors deliberately deploy the term ‘affect’ rather than ‘emotions’ to stress that these feelings operated not only to influence individual reactions, but rather shaped the perspectives of society as a whole.

Proceeding one step further, the authors utilize this understanding of affect to anchor their analysis of ‘affective economies’. They aim to understand how images of violence fostered relationships and reactions that facilitated the economic boom of the early modern Dutch Republic. Throughout the book, the influence of these violent images is examined in three contexts that the authors pin to elements of the burgeoning economy; first, through the embodiment of sensorial reactions and responses; second, within their ability to cultivate social identities and allegiances; and third, in their ability to construct spatial relationships and associations within society.

Importantly, the influence of the affective economy of violent imagery was concurrent with fundamental shifts such as ‘the emergence of modern, capitalist economies, the commodification of images and the expansion and interconnection of different image industries and markets’ (8). The authors are correct to premise their analysis on the novelty of seventeenth-century media culture and the economies that emerged alongside it. By connecting these contexts to ‘modern-day visually oriented societies’, their project speaks to a valuable, but often only implied, analogue (8). Even if it is not the main purpose of this book, any glimpse into the formation and influences of media on society introduces valuable opportunities for reflection and consideration of how similar dynamics mediate modern discourse.

In five sections, Marketing Violence seeks to point out the genesis, application, and consequences of the seventeenth-century Republic’s affective economy. Section 1 analyzes the images themselves and the representational tactics through which they assimilated depictions of violence into Dutch national identity. Important representations such as Claes Jansz. Visscher’s cartographic depiction of the republic as a lion constructed visual arguments of the Dutch Republic premised on violence. The lion itself represented the violence inherent in the natural world, the lion’s sword (inscribed with ‘patriae dei’) depicted the justice of divine violence, and the border depictions of commerce and cities tied the republic’s prosperity to the violence that unified its territories.

The authors are particularly cognizant of the production processes that influenced the visual content of many prints. It was commonplace for printers to borrow visual themes from extant depictions, a process that eased the burden of production and endowed new prints with familiar visual themes. This visual familiarity augmented the ability of certain ideas to influence public perspective. The authors show how this reproduction of familiar visual themes was translated across visual media, a process termed by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin as ‘Remediation’ (2000). Borrowing this term, they explore how the movement between media imparted distinctive elements, as media like engravings, theater, or coins reproduced visual qualities from their predecessors. It asks how viewing an engraving that depicts the violence of colonial resource extraction through the experiential framing of a tableau vivant might influence one’s engagement with the scene. The authors thus show how visual media familiarized audiences with scenes of violence that constructed ‘a sensorial regime in which customers, readers and viewers could attune themselves affectively to a world of violence and enjoyment’ (25).

Section 2 hones in on the influence these media had on their consumers, focusing specifically on how the immersive experiences of violence in theater cultivated desire. It relies on an analysis of changes to the Amsterdam Schouwburg theater, for example in its seating layout and the content of its productions, to argue that the audience was primed to desire visual immersion articulated through violent spectacle. Despite its compelling research, the section’s shift in medium poses several unanswered questions. How well does the audience of live theater match up with that of the mostly printed depictions discussed throughout the book’s other sections? And, even if we see theatrical constructions remediated in print products, should this really be interpreted through the concepts of theater designers or playwrights? That is not to say the themes from theater would not have permeated wider society or that the analysis this book provided serves no use. But rather, it could have been more effectively paired with some engagement with these themes.

The third section explores the role of interest in the Republic’s affective economy of violence. Interactions between observers and grandiose events such as firework displays, riots, and theatrical arrangements serve as the backdrop against which interest and its ability to draw on and cultivate narratives is analyzed. These types of events brought violence directly into the public experience. Their remediation in prints, newspapers, and commemorative medals enabled their messages to be finetuned and reformulated as necessary. By demonstrating how violent imageries could be mobilized to cultivate or quell public unrest, the authors again highlight the dynamism of the media under study.

Section 4 engages in several important themes for early modernity: the control and state monopolization of violence and the apparent reduction of violence alongside the so-called civilizing process of modernity. Marketing Violence does not take a side on the ever-roiling debate over historical violence trends. Instead, the authors provide their own perspectives. They point to coinciding decreases in public violence in the Dutch Republic and increasing visual representations of excessive violence. This in itself is not a new conclusion, but certainly important to note. The book’s real contribution is in its analysis of images that represent violence as implied or on the margins. Here, the authors effectively tie media to the events they depicted and draw out themes that are both apparent and hidden. The serene snaking line of traders at the Amsterdam stock exchange depicted in one image, for instance, represents the institution’s assertation of the market’s inherent peacefulness. The authors, however, point out the break from reality this image represents, underscored by the fact that the image itself is a portrait of the market’s janitor, himself an agent of physical enforcement (70). Through this example and many others, we see images deployed to construct an idea of non-violent marketplaces.

In a similar way, Dutch colonial ventures have been disproportionately removed from historical narratives of colonial cruelty. The book’s final section applies its perspective on the affective economy of violent imageries to a point of historical importance and historiographic influence, highlighting how it functioned in practice and what was at stake. Through a concerted visual strategy, Dutch colonial interests effectively marginalized their role perpetrating colonial violence and simultaneously positioned themselves as a peaceful, tolerant trading society. This marketplace for violence imagery helped to bury atrocities committed by the Dutch all over the world throughout the seventeenth century.

The authors of Marketing Violence have made a valuable contribution to media studies, the history of emotions, and early modern history in general. Their analysis of early modern media provides a novel perspective on an oft-researched topic. It is certainly written for those familiar with the historical context and with some methodological familiarity, yet the authors effectively articulate their research in clear terms. By pointing to the affective pathways along which media influences its consumers and the strength of affective visual narratives, they encourage readers to reflect on our own modern media ecosystem and the potential dangers that might be hidden in its representational scaffolding.