"Late seventeenth-century Amsterdam saw the emergence of a range of printed pictures marketed specifically for children. Like the farcical plays from the city's theatre tradition, these prints - picturing scenes of violence, lust, trickery, and madness in the city's homes, markets, streets and waterways - turn Amsterdam's most cherished social and symbolic spaces upside-down. The material seems completely antagonistic to contemporary convictions that the upbringing of children was crucial to securing the future of the household, the city, and the Dutch Republic."

"Vanhaelen emphasises visual forms such as prints, paintings, drawings and maps, which she examines together with theatre plays, religious treatises and satirical booklets. The work of feminist theorists such as Kristeva and Grosz informs this analysis of the role of misogyny in constituting the early modern image of rational civic space. The theoretical framework of this book links feminist concerns with current critical debates on representation, urban space and everyday life, especially the work of Foucault, de Certeau, Lefebvre and Chartier.

Through a close analysis of early modern visual and textual forms, the author demonstrates how the complex process of constructing meaning and social identity is situated in the power struggles and negotiations between representations and social practices."--Jacket.