The Embarrassment of Riches: an interpretation of Dutch culture in the Golden Age is a book by historian Simon Schama published in 1987.

He details the Dutch's newfound wealth and conspicuous consumption, while trying to match the restraints of Calvinist philosophy and shame.

Schama writes a quasi-anthropological study by utilizing the material culture such as the arts, engravings, illustrated books, delftware and bric-a-brac.

To save themselves from the flood, they did this by reclaiming land with dykes and pumping windmills and from this, emerge their communalist ethics.

[1] Susan Buck-Morss criticizes Schama for his "selective national history" of the Dutch Republic, "that omits much or all of the colonizing story.