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Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City GEERT MAK, 1999 London: The Harvill Press 338 pp.; L20.00 hardback ISBN 1 86046 598 6
Several years ago, when a Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam's Centre for Metro-- politan Studies, I looked in vain for a book in English which could tell me succinctly about the history of this remarkable city, one which could present me with a personal insight into its soul. Now, here is that book. Geert Mak is a Dutch journalist, and his sheer writing skill demonstrates the aridity of much contemporary academic urban history. But it is his passion as much as his erudition, his unerring eye for good examples as much as his local patriotism, which make this book so delightful.
Mak's introduction stresses the special sense of place of Amsterdammers. He points to the republican spirit of the city, and its lack of display and monuments as evidence of local distaste for airs and graces, as ancient characteristics of Amsterdam the city-state, one which the locals worked their hearts out to keep above water. It was this battle against water which led to urban decentralisation and a rough democracy, in Mak's argument. Amsterdam was never a truly medieval city with a feudal tradition. It exploded from the home of a few local fishing families in 1200 to real power only three or four generations later. Why? And why in the boggy mouth of the Amstel river? Mak's answer is the invention of the 'cog'-a 100-ton ship like a floating clog with a mast, which could transport bulk cargoes of basic commodities across the European seas. These ships were by definition free from the crippling taxes imposed upon traffic along north-west Europe's inland waterways.
Mak continues by showing, through the evidence of the City Archaeologist, that Amsterdam came into being between 1150 and 1200, by 1225 had a blacksmith, by 1250 a shoemaker and by 1307 a (wind-)miller. By the early 14th century, there were 50 professions and trades in the city, inlcuding cooper, goldsmith, crossbow-maker and whore. Local houses began to have open exteriors and invisible snug interiors, with animals every-- where; Amsterdammers were part-time farmers. Its sailors were smart enough to bypass the Hanseatic League, and became merchants...