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Amsterdam: A brief life of the city
A magnet for trade and travellers from all over the world, stylish, cosmopolitan Amsterdam is a city of dreams and nightmares, of grand civic architecture and legendary beauty, but also of civil wars, bloody religious purges, and the tragedy of Anne Frank.
In this fascinating examination of the city's soul, part history, part travel guide, Geert Mak imaginatively recreates the lives of the early Amsterdammers, and traces Amsterdam's progress from waterlogged settlement to a major financial centre and thriving modern metropolis
In this fascinating examination of the city's soul, part history, part travel guide, Geert Mak imaginatively recreates the lives of the early Amsterdammers, and traces Amsterdam's progress from waterlogged settlement to a major financial centre and thriving modern metropolis
338 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Geert Mak
59 books429 followersDutch historian mostly known for his documentary series 'In Europa' (In Europe) and book of the same name. Nowadays he gives lectures about the Netherlands in the USA.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 166 reviews
August 4, 2014
A DUTCH DOZEN
1. Amsterdam has a long history of thriftiness, of modesty. In the eighteenth century, Widow Pels, the city's richest inhabitant, had no more than five servants. In the 1990s, a local executive wrote to airline KLM to ask them to tone down their business-class service: ‘A cheese sandwich and a glass of milk are more than enough as far as I am concerned.’
2. If you want to ward off witchcraft, you can follow the example of one medieval Amsterdammer, who hung ‘a pot full of new needles into which she had pissed’ over the fire. (It may not have worked – she ended up confessing to having bewitched cattle, and was burned at the stake on the Dam.)
3. At the height of the tulip mania of the seventeenth century, the most prized variety was called Semper Augustus. It had ‘impeccably white petals with small veins of a fiery red running though them, the base of the bloom as blue as the skies’. A single bulb cost 5,000 guilders, which was about the same price as a house with large garden. (Presumably a garden with no Semper Augustuses in it.)
4. The poor in early modern Amsterdam had two ways out. For women, prostitution (natch); for men, the near-suicidal VOC ships to the East Indies. These were supplied with crews in large part through groups of pressgangers known as zielverkopers (soul merchants), and between shipwrecks and disease little more than a third of sailors would make it back alive. The prostitution, meanwhile, was even then something of a draw for the city, with the best girls having their own well-known nicknames: ‘The Northern Cat’, for instance, or ‘Sweetie Cunt’.
5. Actually, all women in Amsterdam society were known for their forwardness. When Casanova visited in 1759, he was amazed to be placed in a closed carriage alone with a beautiful 14 year old; ‘Here we learn to be independent,’ she said, seeing his surprise. When he tried to kiss her hand, she merely said, ‘Why my hand?’ Instead, according to his memoirs,
6. The nineteenth century was surprisingly quiet given the artistic and social upheavals taking place in other parts of Europe. While various modernisms were being explored in Paris, Willem Bilderdijk and Da Costa founded a society in Amsterdam called ‘Misgivings About the Spirit of the Age’ (!). In 1848 some Communists organised a jobless rally; but when hundreds of people actually showed up, they were so surprised that no one dared to address the crowd, and eventually everyone wandered off home again.
7. Amsterdam has a marked absence of monuments or state buildings; Mak refers to this as its anti-monumentalism, and he considers it characteristic of the city's undemonstrative psyche, not just a function of confused civic planning processes. ‘The number of monumental buildings in Amsterdam dating from the nineteenth century can be counted on the fingers of one hand.’ The main surviving example now is Central Station, which was pushed through from The Hague and widely regarded by authorities in Amsterdam itself as a disaster, ‘an eternal and irreversible mistake’. It finally cut the old town off from the IJ, destroying its character as a true port city and ending the vistas of ship's masts and rigging that had previously dominated locals' and visitors' impressions of the place. This was followed by the filling in of nearly twenty canals, generally to become new streets.
8. Sex work attempted to become slightly more discreet in the twentieth century. Two personal ads from the 1910s weekly Pst-Pst:
9. Mak is scathing on Amsterdam's self-image as a city that was full of resistors during the German occupation, noting that most authorities complied with the Nazi regime unquestioningly. Many saw themselves as minor bureaucrats, arranging for a certain train to run from A to B; the fact that the cargo was Jews did not concern them. In fact the train used to transport Jewish Amsterdammers to the camps in Germany and Poland was the same one every time, and some passengers realised this and hid letters on board for others to read. They tell of the arduous journey, how one girl sang songs, how a man told jokes to keep people's spirits up.
Of the 80,000 Jews in Amsterdam before the war, 5,000 were left alive when the city was liberated in 1945. Mak notes that ‘proportionally more Jews were deported from the Netherlands than from any other Western European country’.
10. In the 60s the city had its own crazy countercultural group known as the Provos (not to be confused with the Provisional IRA; in this case the word came from ‘provoke’). They liked to shout incomprehensible slogans at the police, like ‘Gnot!’ or ‘Smurf the ones who smurf the smurfs!’ Indeed, they had a plan to turn the local policeman into a sort of social worker who would carry ‘matches and contraceptives and also oranges and chicken drumsticks for the hungry proletariat’. When they protested at Princess Beatrix's wedding, a marijuana expert, Kees Hoekert, succeeded in throwing a live chicken at the golden state coach. He had managed to convince security guards that ‘the bird was called Eibertje Vos and that it wanted to have look at the queen’.
11. The city has developed its own uniquely Amsterdammer interpretation of the law, by which authorities are entitled to prosecute a crime but are not obliged to do so – especially in cases where its prosecution is deemed more damaging than the offence itself, as with soft drugs or prostitution.
12. This book is richly researched, well annotated, and comes in a fluent, unimposing translation by Philipp Blom. It makes me feel that I need to read more Dutch history; how can you not love a place where major upheavals are called things like The Hook and Cod Wars and The Eel Uprising?
1. Amsterdam has a long history of thriftiness, of modesty. In the eighteenth century, Widow Pels, the city's richest inhabitant, had no more than five servants. In the 1990s, a local executive wrote to airline KLM to ask them to tone down their business-class service: ‘A cheese sandwich and a glass of milk are more than enough as far as I am concerned.’
2. If you want to ward off witchcraft, you can follow the example of one medieval Amsterdammer, who hung ‘a pot full of new needles into which she had pissed’ over the fire. (It may not have worked – she ended up confessing to having bewitched cattle, and was burned at the stake on the Dam.)
3. At the height of the tulip mania of the seventeenth century, the most prized variety was called Semper Augustus. It had ‘impeccably white petals with small veins of a fiery red running though them, the base of the bloom as blue as the skies’. A single bulb cost 5,000 guilders, which was about the same price as a house with large garden. (Presumably a garden with no Semper Augustuses in it.)
4. The poor in early modern Amsterdam had two ways out. For women, prostitution (natch); for men, the near-suicidal VOC ships to the East Indies. These were supplied with crews in large part through groups of pressgangers known as zielverkopers (soul merchants), and between shipwrecks and disease little more than a third of sailors would make it back alive. The prostitution, meanwhile, was even then something of a draw for the city, with the best girls having their own well-known nicknames: ‘The Northern Cat’, for instance, or ‘Sweetie Cunt’.
5. Actually, all women in Amsterdam society were known for their forwardness. When Casanova visited in 1759, he was amazed to be placed in a closed carriage alone with a beautiful 14 year old; ‘Here we learn to be independent,’ she said, seeing his surprise. When he tried to kiss her hand, she merely said, ‘Why my hand?’ Instead, according to his memoirs,
she gave me a kiss that went straight to my heart. However, when she told me she would do the same in the presence of her father, should I enjoy it, I did not pursue the matter any further.
6. The nineteenth century was surprisingly quiet given the artistic and social upheavals taking place in other parts of Europe. While various modernisms were being explored in Paris, Willem Bilderdijk and Da Costa founded a society in Amsterdam called ‘Misgivings About the Spirit of the Age’ (!). In 1848 some Communists organised a jobless rally; but when hundreds of people actually showed up, they were so surprised that no one dared to address the crowd, and eventually everyone wandered off home again.
7. Amsterdam has a marked absence of monuments or state buildings; Mak refers to this as its anti-monumentalism, and he considers it characteristic of the city's undemonstrative psyche, not just a function of confused civic planning processes. ‘The number of monumental buildings in Amsterdam dating from the nineteenth century can be counted on the fingers of one hand.’ The main surviving example now is Central Station, which was pushed through from The Hague and widely regarded by authorities in Amsterdam itself as a disaster, ‘an eternal and irreversible mistake’. It finally cut the old town off from the IJ, destroying its character as a true port city and ending the vistas of ship's masts and rigging that had previously dominated locals' and visitors' impressions of the place. This was followed by the filling in of nearly twenty canals, generally to become new streets.
8. Sex work attempted to become slightly more discreet in the twentieth century. Two personal ads from the 1910s weekly Pst-Pst:
FOR RENT: A SPACIOUS SITTING- AND BEDROOM IN THE PIJP, RENT 200 FLORINS A MONTH, INCLUDING USE OF GAS LIGHT AND OF A CHARMING 18-YEAR-OLD LADY. LETTERS UNDER NUMBER…
I NEED AN HEIR. MY HUSBAND IS NOT IN ANY STATE TO PROVIDE ONE. WHO WILL DO SERVICE AS CREATOR? LETTERS UNDER "CREATOR" TO NUMBER…
9. Mak is scathing on Amsterdam's self-image as a city that was full of resistors during the German occupation, noting that most authorities complied with the Nazi regime unquestioningly. Many saw themselves as minor bureaucrats, arranging for a certain train to run from A to B; the fact that the cargo was Jews did not concern them. In fact the train used to transport Jewish Amsterdammers to the camps in Germany and Poland was the same one every time, and some passengers realised this and hid letters on board for others to read. They tell of the arduous journey, how one girl sang songs, how a man told jokes to keep people's spirits up.
But always the last sentence of these notes is the same. ‘We have stopped at Auschwitz. We have to get out. It is a large factory city, because you can see a lot of chimneys.’ Or: ‘In the distance there is a building which is lit. 'Bye everyone, we'll be back soon.’
Of the 80,000 Jews in Amsterdam before the war, 5,000 were left alive when the city was liberated in 1945. Mak notes that ‘proportionally more Jews were deported from the Netherlands than from any other Western European country’.
10. In the 60s the city had its own crazy countercultural group known as the Provos (not to be confused with the Provisional IRA; in this case the word came from ‘provoke’). They liked to shout incomprehensible slogans at the police, like ‘Gnot!’ or ‘Smurf the ones who smurf the smurfs!’ Indeed, they had a plan to turn the local policeman into a sort of social worker who would carry ‘matches and contraceptives and also oranges and chicken drumsticks for the hungry proletariat’. When they protested at Princess Beatrix's wedding, a marijuana expert, Kees Hoekert, succeeded in throwing a live chicken at the golden state coach. He had managed to convince security guards that ‘the bird was called Eibertje Vos and that it wanted to have look at the queen’.
11. The city has developed its own uniquely Amsterdammer interpretation of the law, by which authorities are entitled to prosecute a crime but are not obliged to do so – especially in cases where its prosecution is deemed more damaging than the offence itself, as with soft drugs or prostitution.
12. This book is richly researched, well annotated, and comes in a fluent, unimposing translation by Philipp Blom. It makes me feel that I need to read more Dutch history; how can you not love a place where major upheavals are called things like The Hook and Cod Wars and The Eel Uprising?
![Profile Image for Hon Lady Selene [on a hiatus].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1777646425i/51675144._UY200_CR9,0,200,200_.jpg)
April 11, 2022
I read this in preparation for my trip to Amsterdam and had decided to rate it upon my return, for fair judgement. I thus give it a solid 5 stars, it proves impossible not to just walk the streets of Amsterdam without going back to some titbit read in some chapter in this book that was evidently written by minutious research and fondness for this great city.
For example, Mak writes about the tradition of Amsterdam shops during the 12th century to always leave their doors and windows open, in order to encourage customers and facilitate trade.
Today, if you look out the window across the street of the charming 't Zwaantje restaurant on Berenstraat (Bears street), next to the Welvaren Bewaarschool that opened in 1830 (kindergarten for children whose parents are exclusively sailors), there are a few general clothing and souvenirs shops.
And lo and behold, even on a windy and rainy day, in the year of our lord 2022, their doors were still open.
More notes:
- The Story of Elsje Christiaens and Rembrandt's Hanging on a Gibbet (see here), 1664:
Elsje Christiaens, an 18-year old woman from Jutland was executed in May 1, 1664, just two weeks after her arrival in Amsterdam in April of that year. In a violent argument over unpaid rent, Elsje hit her landlady over the head with an axe and knocked her down the cellar stairs. She was exposed to viewers on the gibbet in the gallows field outside of Amsterdam along with the axe, the instrument of her crime.
Rembrandt must have gone to the gibbet almost immediately after the execution: in the drawing the corpse of the girl is still fresh. The drawings he made of Elsje differ from his other work during this period. It seems that he intended to capture the dead girl as realistically as he could, as though he wanted to freeze her death.
Several weeks later, the body of Elsje Christiaens was immortalized once more, this time by the painter Anthonie van Borssom (see here. He painted the gallows of the Volewijk with all the corpses hanging or sitting there at that time: we can now see the colours of her dress as well. We can see that Elsje had been wearing a red skirt and a grey jacket, but her body has slumped a good deal, the head especially, which has sagged by about two feet.
As can be read in the book of confessions, Elsje had been sentenced to be “eaten up by the air and by the birds of the skies . . . tied to a pole with a hatchet above her head”, and this is exactly what happened. From the same book we also know which men interrogated her and eventually decided upon her death: the aldermen Burg, Blaeu, Rochus van de Capelle, van Loon, Spieghel and Bronckhorst.
Without much difficulty we can find the ancestors of most of these men. Dirck Spieghel came from one of the oldest Amsterdam families. Burg, former ambassador to the Russian Court, was also a director of the Westindische Compagnie and administrator of the Amsterdam colony in North America.
Blaeu was no less than the famous cartographer Jan Blaeu, the publisher of the magnificent nine-part Grote Atlas van Blaeu (see here).
Those who determined Elsje’s fate were therefore perfect examples of the patrician families ruling Amsterdam, members that had a firm grip on power in the city. We know their self-satisfied faces from hundreds of portraits, including in two famous ones by Rembrandt: The Night Watch and The Anatomy Lesson.
***
Even more notes of historical interest:
- Sunday, 27 October 1275, Amsterdam first appears in the archival sources. In the document in question, Floris V, Count of Holland, grants freedom from taxation “to the people abiding near the Amsteldam”. When compared to other Dutch cities, it was a late bloomer: Dordrecht (1220), Haarlem (1245), Delft and Alkmaar (both 1246), all preceded Amsterdam by many years.
- the word gezelligheid, that curious Dutch atmosphere of snugness which is soft on the inside and hard on the outside.
- Around 1365, a remarkable 2,500 tons of beer was shipped into Amsterdam each month, a third of Hamburg’s total beer export.
- In 1398, a large expedition from Holland assaulted Friesland, Amsterdam sent four large vessels to be used as floating bakeries, each equipped with five bread ovens, while five flour ships accompanied these baking vessels. The expedition was a success.
- Witch-hunts: 27 November 1555, Meyns was sentenced to the stake for the crime of witchcraft by the Amsterdam magistrates, and subsequently “burned to powder” on the Dam. In the same year a certain Anne Jans was “doomed to the fire” in Amsterdam, together with her daughters Lijsbeth and Jannetje Pieters, because they had “hurt, pestered and bewitched several people and also beasts, and had been in alliance with Satan”.
- The Women’s Uprising: in 1531 the town magistrates decided to erect a building for the storage and taxation of wool in the courtyard of the Holy Place. A group of women protested by damaging the building site. Four richest women were banned from the city for four years unless they paid a fine of 50 guilders.
- Jan Goessens was ordered to make a pilgrimage because he had been heard to say of the Virgin Mary: “If Our Lady is so holy, how holy is the ass that carried her?”
- René Descartes wrote around 1635: “In this city there is nobody who does not trade in something. Everyone is so preoccupied by his own profit that I could live here for all my life without ever being noticed by anyone.”
John Locke wrote his Epistulae de Tolerantia in Amsterdam, among other works. Baruch de Spinoza found the leisure and freedom here to conduct researches, just as did the painter and inventor Jan van der Heijden and the composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Jan Swammerdam laid the foundations for the science of biology and of entomology.
Voltaire, who visited Amsterdam seven times and had his work published here, remarked that it made no difference to the Dutch whether they traded in books or in textiles, and that it did not concern them one bit what was written in these books as long as they made money out of them.
- The diary of Wouter Jacobszoon (1522–95) is a rare source of thoughts during one of the darkest periods in the history of Amsterdam: Catholic citizen's experiences during the Eighty Years War of 1568–1648, a rebellion of burghers against feudal rule, of merchants against nobles, and of a new era against the Middle Ages.
- The fluyt was developed in the 1590s, a revolutionary type of ship in its time, half as expensive to build as other ships of comparable size, and capable of being sailed by ten men, where other vessels of similar displacement required crews of at least thirty. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Dutch had more than 700 ships at sea, a fleet larger than the English, Scottish, and French fleets combined. Between 1600 and 1800, a total of 9,641 ships sailed from Europe to Asia. Almost half of these, 4,720, came from Holland.
- During the Great Frost, on 8 January 1767 the merchant Jacob Bicker Raye noted in his diary: “It is bitterly cold, and freezing so strongly that, even as I write and despite the large fire blazing beside me, the ink is freezing in my pen.”
- In 1893, on a single misty December evening in 1893, 96 Amsterdammers fell into the canals.
For example, Mak writes about the tradition of Amsterdam shops during the 12th century to always leave their doors and windows open, in order to encourage customers and facilitate trade.
Today, if you look out the window across the street of the charming 't Zwaantje restaurant on Berenstraat (Bears street), next to the Welvaren Bewaarschool that opened in 1830 (kindergarten for children whose parents are exclusively sailors), there are a few general clothing and souvenirs shops.
And lo and behold, even on a windy and rainy day, in the year of our lord 2022, their doors were still open.
More notes:
- The Story of Elsje Christiaens and Rembrandt's Hanging on a Gibbet (see here), 1664:
Elsje Christiaens, an 18-year old woman from Jutland was executed in May 1, 1664, just two weeks after her arrival in Amsterdam in April of that year. In a violent argument over unpaid rent, Elsje hit her landlady over the head with an axe and knocked her down the cellar stairs. She was exposed to viewers on the gibbet in the gallows field outside of Amsterdam along with the axe, the instrument of her crime.
Rembrandt must have gone to the gibbet almost immediately after the execution: in the drawing the corpse of the girl is still fresh. The drawings he made of Elsje differ from his other work during this period. It seems that he intended to capture the dead girl as realistically as he could, as though he wanted to freeze her death.
Several weeks later, the body of Elsje Christiaens was immortalized once more, this time by the painter Anthonie van Borssom (see here. He painted the gallows of the Volewijk with all the corpses hanging or sitting there at that time: we can now see the colours of her dress as well. We can see that Elsje had been wearing a red skirt and a grey jacket, but her body has slumped a good deal, the head especially, which has sagged by about two feet.
As can be read in the book of confessions, Elsje had been sentenced to be “eaten up by the air and by the birds of the skies . . . tied to a pole with a hatchet above her head”, and this is exactly what happened. From the same book we also know which men interrogated her and eventually decided upon her death: the aldermen Burg, Blaeu, Rochus van de Capelle, van Loon, Spieghel and Bronckhorst.
Without much difficulty we can find the ancestors of most of these men. Dirck Spieghel came from one of the oldest Amsterdam families. Burg, former ambassador to the Russian Court, was also a director of the Westindische Compagnie and administrator of the Amsterdam colony in North America.
Blaeu was no less than the famous cartographer Jan Blaeu, the publisher of the magnificent nine-part Grote Atlas van Blaeu (see here).
Those who determined Elsje’s fate were therefore perfect examples of the patrician families ruling Amsterdam, members that had a firm grip on power in the city. We know their self-satisfied faces from hundreds of portraits, including in two famous ones by Rembrandt: The Night Watch and The Anatomy Lesson.
***
Even more notes of historical interest:
- Sunday, 27 October 1275, Amsterdam first appears in the archival sources. In the document in question, Floris V, Count of Holland, grants freedom from taxation “to the people abiding near the Amsteldam”. When compared to other Dutch cities, it was a late bloomer: Dordrecht (1220), Haarlem (1245), Delft and Alkmaar (both 1246), all preceded Amsterdam by many years.
- the word gezelligheid, that curious Dutch atmosphere of snugness which is soft on the inside and hard on the outside.
- Around 1365, a remarkable 2,500 tons of beer was shipped into Amsterdam each month, a third of Hamburg’s total beer export.
- In 1398, a large expedition from Holland assaulted Friesland, Amsterdam sent four large vessels to be used as floating bakeries, each equipped with five bread ovens, while five flour ships accompanied these baking vessels. The expedition was a success.
- Witch-hunts: 27 November 1555, Meyns was sentenced to the stake for the crime of witchcraft by the Amsterdam magistrates, and subsequently “burned to powder” on the Dam. In the same year a certain Anne Jans was “doomed to the fire” in Amsterdam, together with her daughters Lijsbeth and Jannetje Pieters, because they had “hurt, pestered and bewitched several people and also beasts, and had been in alliance with Satan”.
- The Women’s Uprising: in 1531 the town magistrates decided to erect a building for the storage and taxation of wool in the courtyard of the Holy Place. A group of women protested by damaging the building site. Four richest women were banned from the city for four years unless they paid a fine of 50 guilders.
- Jan Goessens was ordered to make a pilgrimage because he had been heard to say of the Virgin Mary: “If Our Lady is so holy, how holy is the ass that carried her?”
- René Descartes wrote around 1635: “In this city there is nobody who does not trade in something. Everyone is so preoccupied by his own profit that I could live here for all my life without ever being noticed by anyone.”
John Locke wrote his Epistulae de Tolerantia in Amsterdam, among other works. Baruch de Spinoza found the leisure and freedom here to conduct researches, just as did the painter and inventor Jan van der Heijden and the composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Jan Swammerdam laid the foundations for the science of biology and of entomology.
Voltaire, who visited Amsterdam seven times and had his work published here, remarked that it made no difference to the Dutch whether they traded in books or in textiles, and that it did not concern them one bit what was written in these books as long as they made money out of them.
- The diary of Wouter Jacobszoon (1522–95) is a rare source of thoughts during one of the darkest periods in the history of Amsterdam: Catholic citizen's experiences during the Eighty Years War of 1568–1648, a rebellion of burghers against feudal rule, of merchants against nobles, and of a new era against the Middle Ages.
- The fluyt was developed in the 1590s, a revolutionary type of ship in its time, half as expensive to build as other ships of comparable size, and capable of being sailed by ten men, where other vessels of similar displacement required crews of at least thirty. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Dutch had more than 700 ships at sea, a fleet larger than the English, Scottish, and French fleets combined. Between 1600 and 1800, a total of 9,641 ships sailed from Europe to Asia. Almost half of these, 4,720, came from Holland.
- During the Great Frost, on 8 January 1767 the merchant Jacob Bicker Raye noted in his diary: “It is bitterly cold, and freezing so strongly that, even as I write and despite the large fire blazing beside me, the ink is freezing in my pen.”
- In 1893, on a single misty December evening in 1893, 96 Amsterdammers fell into the canals.
May 28, 2016
Before my first visit, I wanted to read something that would give me a relatively quick, interesting overview of the history of Amsterdam from its beginnings to the present and this is pretty much what Geert Mak gives us in his book. I'll be visiting for only a few days but I feel that I have a good sense of the many layers of the city, especially its social and political history. I wish Mak had given a bit more on the history of the arts, literature, and music in Amsterdam, but that's a fairly minor complaint. I found Mak's account of the 17th and 18th centuries particularly fascinating and his account of World War II and its aftermath is heartbreaking. He's particularly good at using accounts by individuals from their journals for an "on-the-ground" view of life in these periods, and equally good at contextualizing these lives by pulling back and giving us an overview of the politics and planning of the city.
January 1, 2018
Alweer een schitterend boek van Geert Mak over de geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Geert is de leraar die je graag met geschiedenis of maatschappijleer voor de klas had gezien. Eenmaal begonnen is het bijna onmogelijk een boek van hem neer te leggen.
July 26, 2026
Ik zal gelijk maar eerlijk toegeven dat ik 130 pagina's heb geskipt (sorry not sorry). Premoderne geschiedenis vind ik gewoon niet zo heeeel interessant en dat blijkt maar weer. Rond pagina 100 vond ik het echt mokersaai, dus ben ik doorgebladerd naar de eerste pagina waarop het jaar 1800 stond (pagina 230 ongeveer) en daar verder gelezen. Toen werd het weer leuk!!! Maar dit mag natuurlijk geen kritiek zijn op het boek want dit is gewoon persoonlijke voorkeur.
Wél een kritiek puntje: in vergelijking met de andere boeken die ik van Geert Mak heb gelezen, vond ik Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam wel minder fijn geschreven. In bijv. Reizen zonder John en Wisselwachter kan hij heeeel mooi en knap van perspectief wisselen en grote en kleine geschiedenis met elkaar verbinden. Hier vond ik die verbinding tussen de twee een stuk stroever om eerlijk te zijn. En soms echt random afbeeldingen tussendoor die helemaal niet toegelicht worden of relevant zijn voor de tekst eromheen?? Dat was ook wel raar.
Maar he, deze moest ik natuurlijk gelezen hebben als geschiedenisstudent in Amsterdam! En het blijft natuurlijk leuk om zo over de stad te lezen dus toch gewoon drie sterren :)
Wél een kritiek puntje: in vergelijking met de andere boeken die ik van Geert Mak heb gelezen, vond ik Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam wel minder fijn geschreven. In bijv. Reizen zonder John en Wisselwachter kan hij heeeel mooi en knap van perspectief wisselen en grote en kleine geschiedenis met elkaar verbinden. Hier vond ik die verbinding tussen de twee een stuk stroever om eerlijk te zijn. En soms echt random afbeeldingen tussendoor die helemaal niet toegelicht worden of relevant zijn voor de tekst eromheen?? Dat was ook wel raar.
Maar he, deze moest ik natuurlijk gelezen hebben als geschiedenisstudent in Amsterdam! En het blijft natuurlijk leuk om zo over de stad te lezen dus toch gewoon drie sterren :)
August 6, 2012
So begins the summer vacation report. I've now exhausted Geert Mak's library that's been translated into English. In this book, he takes up Amsterdam, and traces the city from past to present. My main knock with large stretches is that my knowledge of the city simply wasn't strong enough to have context for the places he named. The book itself seemed well researched and drew good connections. Its strongest sections was the 1930s and 1940s, when Mak takes a hard look at the city and country's response to fascism within Netherlands and then the Nazi invasion. Like with "In Europe," he pulls no punches about how truly heroic (and mostly non heroic) the city's residents were. That was followed by the most disappointing chapter tracing the city since the war to the present (1994), which felt rush and overly focused on one event to the detriment of talking about others.
Good read, and undoubtedly more enjoyable for those who've spent longer in the city.
Good read, and undoubtedly more enjoyable for those who've spent longer in the city.
May 11, 2021
Really well organized and riveting. A very Dutch - nonglamorous, real version of Amsterdam's history. I tried to read it before I lived here and it was uninteresting and too specific in locations and detail. Now that I have lived here for 4.5 years, and know the streets and the neighborhoods, it was great.
I didnt read it on a kindle so could not save my highlights -
But I wlll save a few here.
In the late 1660's France, England and Spain were attacking AMsterdam
Maak says " These unexpected attacks were motivated largely by economic rivalries, but there was also an important ideological element: the absolute monarchies of Europe had had enough of the Republics's freedoms of speech, ideas and religion, the satirical prints and forbidden books, suppressed elsewhere in Europe, which streamed forth from the tolerant Holland."
Regarding the Nazi occupation, the book is sad and truthful about the lack of resistance in Holland.
"this passive guilt, the guilt felt by those who have allowed something terrible to happen, explains why the Dutch population developed such a vicious anger against everyonr who had formally been on the wrong side during the war, while genuine collaborators were often ignored. The guilt of the idle spectator still hovers like a cloud over the entire city.
I didnt read it on a kindle so could not save my highlights -
But I wlll save a few here.
In the late 1660's France, England and Spain were attacking AMsterdam
Maak says " These unexpected attacks were motivated largely by economic rivalries, but there was also an important ideological element: the absolute monarchies of Europe had had enough of the Republics's freedoms of speech, ideas and religion, the satirical prints and forbidden books, suppressed elsewhere in Europe, which streamed forth from the tolerant Holland."
Regarding the Nazi occupation, the book is sad and truthful about the lack of resistance in Holland.
"this passive guilt, the guilt felt by those who have allowed something terrible to happen, explains why the Dutch population developed such a vicious anger against everyonr who had formally been on the wrong side during the war, while genuine collaborators were often ignored. The guilt of the idle spectator still hovers like a cloud over the entire city.
to-read-non-fiction
August 1, 2015I will read this for an overview of the Dutch scene before other books.
January 2, 2026
3,75
Lastig te beoordelen boek. Meestal heb ik meer genoten van een boek als het 4 sterren krijgt, en zeker Mak boeken vind ik meestal leuker. Maar dit boek besloeg nou eenmaal een enorm onderwerp: de gehele geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Onvermijdelijk dus dat het een beetje een feitenbrij wordt, en dat er geschiedenis tussen zit die mij minder interesseert.
Uiteraard enorm informatief, en ook echt wel duidelijk. Ik was wel al bewust van het feit dat ik weinig wist van de stad waar ik woon, maar dat is des te duidelijker geworden. Tijdens dit boek dus ook veel tijd op maps doorgebracht, op zoek naar alle grachten, wallen, gebouwen & pleinen die de revue passeren.
Een heleboel leuke info ook, zoals de herkomst van ‘voor pampus liggen’ en details uit de Gouden Eeuw, maar ook het slapende Amsterdam van de 100 jaar erna. Ik heb sowieso nooit beseft hoe belangrijk water en de haven is geweest voor het vroegere Amsterdam.
De pars pro toto benadering, waarbij Mak zoals vaker de geschiedenis ophangt aan specifieke personen, vond ik hier minder geslaagd.
Toch 4 sterren, omdat het gewoon een goed boek is.
Lastig te beoordelen boek. Meestal heb ik meer genoten van een boek als het 4 sterren krijgt, en zeker Mak boeken vind ik meestal leuker. Maar dit boek besloeg nou eenmaal een enorm onderwerp: de gehele geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Onvermijdelijk dus dat het een beetje een feitenbrij wordt, en dat er geschiedenis tussen zit die mij minder interesseert.
Uiteraard enorm informatief, en ook echt wel duidelijk. Ik was wel al bewust van het feit dat ik weinig wist van de stad waar ik woon, maar dat is des te duidelijker geworden. Tijdens dit boek dus ook veel tijd op maps doorgebracht, op zoek naar alle grachten, wallen, gebouwen & pleinen die de revue passeren.
Een heleboel leuke info ook, zoals de herkomst van ‘voor pampus liggen’ en details uit de Gouden Eeuw, maar ook het slapende Amsterdam van de 100 jaar erna. Ik heb sowieso nooit beseft hoe belangrijk water en de haven is geweest voor het vroegere Amsterdam.
De pars pro toto benadering, waarbij Mak zoals vaker de geschiedenis ophangt aan specifieke personen, vond ik hier minder geslaagd.
Toch 4 sterren, omdat het gewoon een goed boek is.
February 27, 2019
Wat is de Nederlandse geschiedenis soms toch leuk! Leuk boek voor mijn inburgering als nieuwe Amsterdammer :)
May 27, 2021
Voor de helft van de prijs was de prijs-kwaliteit goed geweest. De tweede 200 pagina’s zijn aan te raden.
Read
September 5, 2026An underwhelming end to an otherwise profound and witty retelling of Amsterdam’s history.
At times confusing to follow. Included images have no apparent relation to the text in which they appear.
But overall, helped me appreciate the city to be more than my previous assumptions of Dutch neutralism and cycling proclivities.
“The people here know only work and moderation” - Voltaire
At times confusing to follow. Included images have no apparent relation to the text in which they appear.
But overall, helped me appreciate the city to be more than my previous assumptions of Dutch neutralism and cycling proclivities.
“The people here know only work and moderation” - Voltaire
February 17, 2016
A really fascinating read, I love Amsterdam and all its quirks and this is a good introduction to those historical peculiarities.
Why didn't I like it? Phillip blom (a German living in London translating Dutch) did a fairly poor job translating, half of me wants to rewrite the whole thing in to flow better (the other half wants to get paid for such a task)
But also geert mak, in attempting to make it all fit as a narrative, gets far to lyrical in his phrases. The first few and the last few pages are shit, while he's actually telling you about Amsterdam are great.
Tldr- a solid middle of the road history book, easy read if you can get past random awkwardnesses in the translation :p
Why didn't I like it? Phillip blom (a German living in London translating Dutch) did a fairly poor job translating, half of me wants to rewrite the whole thing in to flow better (the other half wants to get paid for such a task)
But also geert mak, in attempting to make it all fit as a narrative, gets far to lyrical in his phrases. The first few and the last few pages are shit, while he's actually telling you about Amsterdam are great.
Tldr- a solid middle of the road history book, easy read if you can get past random awkwardnesses in the translation :p
April 10, 2013
I must confess... unlike Sean Hannity, I don't really have any interest in reading anything less than 4-5 star books. I'll leave the Dick & Jane stuff to him and Ted Nugent. Anyway, this is more than a typical, boring recitation of facts. Mr. Mak traces the history of this cosmopolitan city with a lot of 1st person accounts. Great information about the 17th and 18th century. It gave my trip there a great deal more depth.
September 6, 2014
Ottima indagine storoca della capitale olandese.
March 27, 2016
I read this book with great interest and pleasure. I read it before going to Amsterdam turning my visit into a history dive!
January 7, 2017
3,5 Ster! Fijn boek, vooral het deel dat tot 1900 reikte, leerde me veel nieuws over de stad waar ik woon, en waar ook mijn voorouders van 1760 tot 1866 woonden. Mooie aanleiding tot verder lezen.
August 24, 2017
Llàstima no haver-lo pogut disfrutar plenament; l'anglès era massa literari i se'm feia farragós d'entendre.
December 21, 2025
Enjoyable and fast reading history of Amsterdam by Dutch historian Geert Mak, translated by Philipp Blom. It covers the history from founding through the mid-1990s (published 1994). Has several excellent maps, black and white illustrations throughout the text, a bibliography, and a readable section of notes at the end.
I really enjoyed how the author would stop during different points of Amsterdam history and describe the sights, sounds, smells of typical life in the city at the at time, noting such as how the city operated at night or what people ate or how they got around, very vivid. Even further, the author would focus on particular people and describe their Amsterdam, notably Wouter Jacobszoon (1522-1595, an Augustinian monk who wrote “the first real diary to come down to us from Amsterdam history,” his account a vivid portrait of religious turmoil), Elsje Christiaens (an 18-year-old woman, newly arrived in the city, executed for murder in 1664, her body hung for all to see and drawn by Rembrandt, the art now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, discussing what led to her to execution and her life in 17th century Amsterdam), and Jacob Bicker Raye (Amsterdam merchant who kept a diary between 1732-1772, who seemed to like to record how life was really cheap and “led the life of a gossiping civil servant”).
The author did a great job of noting as a narrative thread the history of Dutch tolerance of different philosophies and religion (going back centuries) but also taking care to note when Amsterdam wasn’t tolerant (particularly during the age of religious wars) as well as noting the “fissure separating the old Amsterdam of God’s Blessing from the new Amsterdam of Good Fortune,” with medieval Amsterdam having its last real moment in the early 1500s.
The author didn’t lionize Amsterdam and definitely noted when religious fervor and intolerance was dominant for a time, how daily life for centuries could be really tough (with people just starving to death or dying of exposure in full view of others), when after the heights of the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century Amsterdam became for a time rather provincial and backwater (a “burnt-out world city”), the massive amount of collaboration of the Dutch during the German occupation in World War II, and how a number of collaborators never faced justice while those who were in the Resistance actually faced some stigma. He did praise the city, noting the average person’s love of paintings during the Golden Age, its revival again into a “bustling harbor city,” how democratic ideals and the concepts of the Enlightenment were such an important part of Dutch politics, the vibrant Jewish community prior to World War II, how the Dutch worked together during the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, and the progressive politics post war as the people debated should it be a museum city or a “modern business city.”
Coverage of how the Little Ice Age affected Amsterdam was fascinating; the “eighteenth century was the century of cold and of the Great Frost.”
Complaints? A few sections could be a little dry. Some topics only got a few pages such as the Iconoclastic Fury and the Alteration and slavery could have been more extensively discussed. There were passages where the author rattled off the names of Dutch neighborhoods and cities that were unfamiliar to me completely; I still understood the context of what was said as far as larger points, but referencing this small city or that neighborhood rarely meant anything to me. A few times in discussing post-World War II history it almost read like the author assumed I already had familiarity with some of the players and events. At least no extensive chapter discussing football, something some British authors about the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain feel they need to include.
I really enjoyed how the author would stop during different points of Amsterdam history and describe the sights, sounds, smells of typical life in the city at the at time, noting such as how the city operated at night or what people ate or how they got around, very vivid. Even further, the author would focus on particular people and describe their Amsterdam, notably Wouter Jacobszoon (1522-1595, an Augustinian monk who wrote “the first real diary to come down to us from Amsterdam history,” his account a vivid portrait of religious turmoil), Elsje Christiaens (an 18-year-old woman, newly arrived in the city, executed for murder in 1664, her body hung for all to see and drawn by Rembrandt, the art now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, discussing what led to her to execution and her life in 17th century Amsterdam), and Jacob Bicker Raye (Amsterdam merchant who kept a diary between 1732-1772, who seemed to like to record how life was really cheap and “led the life of a gossiping civil servant”).
The author did a great job of noting as a narrative thread the history of Dutch tolerance of different philosophies and religion (going back centuries) but also taking care to note when Amsterdam wasn’t tolerant (particularly during the age of religious wars) as well as noting the “fissure separating the old Amsterdam of God’s Blessing from the new Amsterdam of Good Fortune,” with medieval Amsterdam having its last real moment in the early 1500s.
The author didn’t lionize Amsterdam and definitely noted when religious fervor and intolerance was dominant for a time, how daily life for centuries could be really tough (with people just starving to death or dying of exposure in full view of others), when after the heights of the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century Amsterdam became for a time rather provincial and backwater (a “burnt-out world city”), the massive amount of collaboration of the Dutch during the German occupation in World War II, and how a number of collaborators never faced justice while those who were in the Resistance actually faced some stigma. He did praise the city, noting the average person’s love of paintings during the Golden Age, its revival again into a “bustling harbor city,” how democratic ideals and the concepts of the Enlightenment were such an important part of Dutch politics, the vibrant Jewish community prior to World War II, how the Dutch worked together during the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, and the progressive politics post war as the people debated should it be a museum city or a “modern business city.”
Coverage of how the Little Ice Age affected Amsterdam was fascinating; the “eighteenth century was the century of cold and of the Great Frost.”
Complaints? A few sections could be a little dry. Some topics only got a few pages such as the Iconoclastic Fury and the Alteration and slavery could have been more extensively discussed. There were passages where the author rattled off the names of Dutch neighborhoods and cities that were unfamiliar to me completely; I still understood the context of what was said as far as larger points, but referencing this small city or that neighborhood rarely meant anything to me. A few times in discussing post-World War II history it almost read like the author assumed I already had familiarity with some of the players and events. At least no extensive chapter discussing football, something some British authors about the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain feel they need to include.
May 13, 2021
Another fantastic read in my literary journey trying to discover the history of the city which I unexpectedly call my temporary home.
From medieval mediocre town to a fabulous and bursting capital of trade and free mind in the 17th centre, Amsterdam is a city which underwent an extraordinairy change and brought a lot of new wind to the world.
Like every story of every kind, aside success there are also aspects to city’s development which do not receive admiration, or rather the opposite. I especially enjoyed the section on the WWII, and the author’s open take on what probably can be called the biggest shame of the city - its relative obedience to the nazi regime and elimination of a significant part of Amsterdams population and heritage - its jews.
Highly recommend this book to everyone seeking to better undestand Amsterdam and its rich history.
From medieval mediocre town to a fabulous and bursting capital of trade and free mind in the 17th centre, Amsterdam is a city which underwent an extraordinairy change and brought a lot of new wind to the world.
Like every story of every kind, aside success there are also aspects to city’s development which do not receive admiration, or rather the opposite. I especially enjoyed the section on the WWII, and the author’s open take on what probably can be called the biggest shame of the city - its relative obedience to the nazi regime and elimination of a significant part of Amsterdams population and heritage - its jews.
Highly recommend this book to everyone seeking to better undestand Amsterdam and its rich history.
April 27, 2023
3.5 stars. I was looking for a nonfiction history of Amsterdam to read so that I would have context and background knowledge of the area before visiting. This book fit the bill. It was a bit dry and took a month to read, but I did learn a lot and found myself sharing tidbits with my family as I read.
January 2, 2022
Geert Mak schrijft ontzettend boeiend en engagerend - de perfecte manier om je in de geschiedenis te verdiepen. Een aanrader voor iedereen die interesse heeft in het verleden van onze prachtige hoofdstad.
August 22, 2026
Heel erg genoten. Fijne schrijfstijl, perfecte midden tussen serieus en vlot. Mooi om de geschiedenis van je stad zo tot leven te zien komen. Hij mag wel de onnodige gruwelijke details die vooral als shockfactor zijn bedoeld soms weglaten.
March 1, 2019
Turns out Amsterdam is a very pleasant but not especially historically interesting city.
July 21, 2023
Geert Mak is als een etenswaar dat beter wordt met de tijd.
July 31, 2025
Geert Mak heeft met Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam een boek geschreven dat even toegankelijk als rijk is. Waar veel geschiedschrijving zich verliest in droge feiten en jaartallen, weet Mak steeds de menselijke maat te bewaren. Hij vertelt de geschiedenis van de stad alsof je door de straten wandelt en luistert naar de stemmen van de bewoners, van middeleeuwse kooplieden tot hedendaagse stedelingen.
Het boek is een chronologische reconstructie van Amsterdams ontwikkeling, ook een portret van een mentaliteit. Mak laat zien hoe een kleine nederzetting aan de Amstel uitgroeide tot een wereldstad, gedreven door handel, tolerantie en strijd. Van de eerste dijken en sluizen, via de gouden eeuw met haar ongekende rijkdom en ongelijkheid, tot de verzuiling en de moderne tijd: elke periode krijgt kleur door de manier waarop Mak de verhalen van gewone mensen verweeft met de grote gebeurtenissen.
Wat het boek bijzonder maakt, is de balans tussen helderheid en diepte. Mak schrijft toegankelijk, maar verliest de nuance nooit. Hij schetst hoe Amsterdam altijd een paradox is geweest: een stad van vrijheid en openheid, maar ook van uitbuiting en scherpe tegenstellingen.
Voor wie de stad kent, is het een feest van herkenning: plekken die je misschien dagelijks passeert, blijken beladen met eeuwen geschiedenis. Voor wie de stad niet kent, is het een meeslepende inleiding in het unieke karakter van Amsterdam.
Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam is veel meer dan een historisch overzicht. Het is een levendig verhaal over een stad die altijd in beweging is geweest, en die tot op vandaag de belichaming vormt van zowel idealen als tegenstrijdigheden. Geert Mak bewijst zich opnieuw als een van de beste vertellers van onze nationale geschiedenis.
Het boek is een chronologische reconstructie van Amsterdams ontwikkeling, ook een portret van een mentaliteit. Mak laat zien hoe een kleine nederzetting aan de Amstel uitgroeide tot een wereldstad, gedreven door handel, tolerantie en strijd. Van de eerste dijken en sluizen, via de gouden eeuw met haar ongekende rijkdom en ongelijkheid, tot de verzuiling en de moderne tijd: elke periode krijgt kleur door de manier waarop Mak de verhalen van gewone mensen verweeft met de grote gebeurtenissen.
Wat het boek bijzonder maakt, is de balans tussen helderheid en diepte. Mak schrijft toegankelijk, maar verliest de nuance nooit. Hij schetst hoe Amsterdam altijd een paradox is geweest: een stad van vrijheid en openheid, maar ook van uitbuiting en scherpe tegenstellingen.
Voor wie de stad kent, is het een feest van herkenning: plekken die je misschien dagelijks passeert, blijken beladen met eeuwen geschiedenis. Voor wie de stad niet kent, is het een meeslepende inleiding in het unieke karakter van Amsterdam.
Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam is veel meer dan een historisch overzicht. Het is een levendig verhaal over een stad die altijd in beweging is geweest, en die tot op vandaag de belichaming vormt van zowel idealen als tegenstrijdigheden. Geert Mak bewijst zich opnieuw als een van de beste vertellers van onze nationale geschiedenis.
August 13, 2026
3.5 ✨️
June 8, 2023
A simple but interesting summary of Amsterdam's history. At times I felt a little bit lost in the chronology as the writer jumps back and forth in time while retelling an event (for example, Rembrandt's life) and I missed a bit more detail surrounding certain topics (for example the assassination of Willem van Oranje-Nassau). But overall I enjoyed reading this book, I learned a lot about my neighbourhood and recommend it to other history and/or Amsterdam lovers.
February 24, 2026
Prachtig
September 27, 2025
occasionally dense but also so so cool to read while here! it’s cool to see the city from so many perspectives in the places i walk every day
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