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A Note About the Author
RUSSELL SHORTO is the author, most recently, of Descartes’ Bones and of The Island at the Center of the World and is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. His books have been published in fourteen languages and have won numerous awards. From 2008 to 2013, he was the director of the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam.
Other titles by Russell Shorto available in eBook format
Decartes’ Bones • 978-0-385-52837-5
The Island at the Center of the World • 978-1-400-09633-6
Visit: www.russellshorto.com
For more information, please visit www.doubleday.com
An artist’s rendering of Amsterdam circa 1300. The dam on the Amstel River, at bottom, gave the city its name. Illustration: Paul Maas
A view of Dam Square today, looking in the same direction as the rendering: down the street that was built over the river, toward the harbor. Photo: Gabriel Draghicescu
A depiction from 1560 of the procession celebrating the Miracle of Amsterdam that occurred in 1345. Begijnhof Chapel, Amsterdam/Photo: Roeland Koning
A more recent procession. Photo: Bart van Dijk
Cornelis Anthoniszoon’s bird’s-eye view of Amsterdam was presented to Emperor Charles V in 1538. It shows the medieval city set in the flat countryside, fronted by the IJ. The river Amstel cuts through the middle of the city. The dam that gives Amsterdam its name is directly in the center. Note also the intricate channels throughout the countryside by which water was managed. Amsterdam Museum
Willem, Prince of Orange, aka William the Silent, the father of the Dutch Republic. Rijksmuseum
Dirck van Os opened his house to everyone wishing to sign on as a shareholder in the Dutch East India Company, making his Amsterdam home, in a sense, the birthplace of capitalism. Courtesy Collectie Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier, Heerhugowaard
The Duke of Alba, who brought the terror of the Inquisition to the Netherlands. Shown below are Alba’s troops sacking of the city of Naarden, en route to Amsterdam. Alba informed King Philip that his men “slit the throats of burghers and soldiers without a single man escaping, then they set fire to the town. Left: Liria Palace: The Alba Collection; below: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
The return of the second East Indies fleet, the event that ignited Amsterdam’s golden age. Amsterdam Museum
The world’s first stock exchange, which, typically enough, Amsterdammers built over water. Stadsarchief Amsterdam
Dam Square, with the new City Hall being built at left, in 1656, the height of the city’s golden age. The painting sho
ws a booming, mixed society—with people in European and Asian dress—and ships in the background. Amsterdam Museum
The VOC headquarters in Bengal, circa 1665. Amsterdam’s golden age was built on wealth from outposts all over Asia. Rijksmuseum
A modern illustration of a team of pile drivers at work in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Each of the roughly 3,000 houses built on the city’s insubstantial ground during the golden age required about forty piles driven in this backbreaking manner. Illustration: Tim Killiam
Jan van der Heyden’s modernization of firefighting techniques in Amsterdam was copied around Europe. He showed off his wares in his art. In this cross section of a burning house, the man at lower left is using the old method; the team at right uses van der Heyden’s engine and new long hoses. Technische Universiteit, Delft
Van der Heyden’s painting of the new City Hall was intended as an advertisement for Amsterdam as the city of the future. Louvre
The interior of a seventeenth-century water coach, which traveled between Dutch towns on a regularly posted schedule. The convenience, comfort, and egalitarianism amazed foreigners. Photo: Tim Killiam
Rembrandt’s group portrait of the men responsible for monitoring textiles reveals two things: the artist’s ability to bring mystery to a mundane subject and the importance that Amsterdam placed on quality control of products it Sold. Rijksmuseum
In a sense, the Dutch in the seventeenth century invented the idea of home as a uniquely personal space. Pieter de Hooch made it his subject matter. Rijksmuseum
Rembrandt’s painting of the renowned surgeon Nicolaes Tulp giving his annual anatomy lesson made the artist famous among Amsterdammers. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis
Furniture maker Herman Doomer and his wife, Baertjen Martens, were among the many Amsterdammers who clamored for Rembrandt to paint their portraits. He seemed to them to capture not only what they looked like but who they actually were. Metropolitan Museum of Art
The waag, or weighing house, which today contains a restaurant. In the seventeenth century the top floor was an anatomical theater, where Rembrandt painted The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp. Photo: Miriam van der Meij
Movement was the innovation Rembrandt brought to the genre of the company portrait. Where before the guards were posed at rest, he chose to depict them in action. As a genre, the paintings were statements to the rest of Europe that said, in effect: Here we don’t depend on kings or popes; this is our town and we take care of it ourselves. Rijksmuseum
Rembrandt’s portrait of Jan Six has been called the greatest portrait of the seventeenth century. Six was one of the wealthiest men in Amsterdam and founder of a world-renowned art collection, the centerpiece of which is his own portrait. Six’s direct descendant, Jan Six XI, is today a fine-art dealer in Amsterdam. Photo: Stefan Korte
Generational divide: the portraits of Andries Bicker, who was part of the generation that built Amsterdam’s golden age, and of his son Gerard show a study in the contrasts of the era, from sober industriousness to excess and waste. Rijksmuseum
Willem Blaeu settled in Amsterdam in 1596, at the start of the golden age. He and his son, Joan, became the world’s leading cartographers and part of the city’s publishing industry, which was the biggest in the world. The Blaeu Atlas Maior, which included this world map, was the most expensive book of the seventeenth century. Rijksmuseum
Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher of Amsterdam’s liberalism. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany
John Locke, the English political philosopher who began to publish under the influence of Amsterdam’s Enlightenment circle. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
The landing of Willem III’s army on the English coast. The “Glorious Revolution” was in fact an invasion, which resulted in the Dutch stadholder becoming King William. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
A portion of a page from the Amsterdam betrothal registry showing the intention of Catalina Trico and Joris Rapalje to marry in 1624. Their marks are at bottom. Trico and Rapalje would sail to New Amsterdam, have eleven children, and in effect become the Adam and Eve of Dutch New York. Their descendants today have been estimated at over one million. Courtesy Stadsarchief Amsterdam
Eduard Douwes Dekker, aka Multatuli, the Dutch writer who, by some reckonings, launched the anticolonial movement. Multatuli Museum
Karta Nata Negara, the Javanese leader whose abuse of peasants, which was tolerated by the Dutch colonizers, incited Dekker to write. Universiteit van Amsterdam
Gedogen, the unique Dutch word that means “illegal but officially tolerated” has long been part of Amsterdam’s liberalism. Prostitution was legalized in 2000, but these prostitutes were openly exhibiting themselves in the red-light district in 1890. www.stadsarchief.nl
Frieda Menco’s family gathered at her Amsterdam apartment just before the Nazi invasion. Frieda is in the back on the right, standing behind her grandparents. Of the seventeen people pictured, twelve would die in the war, most at Auschwitz. Courtesy Frieda Menco
Frieda Menco in 2013. Photo: Russell Shorto
Anne Frank (center) walking next to her father and with others en route to the wedding of his employee Miep Gies. The crucial thing to note is the date: June 1941. The city had been under Nazi occupation for more than a year, but, at this point, Jews in Amsterdam could still smile. Courtesy Anne Frank Family
A Nazi show of power in Amsterdam, March 1941. Courtesy Beeldbank WO2–NIOD
Walraven van Hall, the banker who led the Dutch resistance. Courtesy Aad van Hall
After World War II, a huge crowd turned out as Euterpestraat—a street that had been hated as the location of the Nazi SD and Gestapo in Amsterdam—was renamed in honor of slain resistance leader Gerrit van der Veen. Courtesy Beeidbank WO2–NIOD
Dutch designer and gay rights pioneer Benno Premsela, who hid from the Nazis and emerged with the conviction that he would never again hide who he was. He is pictured here during one of the groundbreaking television interviews in which he declared homosexuality to be normal. Courtesy Stadsarchief Amsterdam
Probably Benno Premsela’s most famous and enduring design was the “Lotek lamp.” Courtesy www.hollandslicht.eu
Robert Jasper Grootveld leading a happening at the Lieverdje statue: the center of Amsterdam’s 1960s counterculture movement. Photo: Cor Jaring
The cover of the first issue of Provo. Courtesy Roel van Duijn
The wedding procession of Princess Beatrix and the German nobleman Claus von Amsberg was successfully marred by Provo smoke bombs, despite the heavy police presence. Courtesy ANP
The “white bicycle plan,” which was to make bicycles available free of charge as a way to counter automobiles, failed. But in time it would spawn a new approach to bicycles in cities worldwide. Photo: Cor Jaring
John and Yoko’s bed-in for peace, at the Amsterdam Hilton, helped cement the city’s image as a global counterculture center. Courtesy National Archief
Theo van Gogh, whose murder in 2004 led to a crisis point in the Dutch experiment with multiculturalism. Courtesy Hollandse Hoogte
With 178 different nationalities, Amsterdam tops even New York in diversity. Photo: Miriam van der Meij
Contemporary Dutch photographer Hendrik Kerstens riffs on seventeenth-century portraiture, using his daughter and a plastic bag. © Hendrik Kerstens, courtesy Nunc Contemporary
Amsterdam’s bicycle network leads those of all other cities. There are two-way bike lanes, bicycle parking garages, and bicycle streetlamps. According to city statistics, 40 percent of every mile of human transport in the city is via bicycle. Photo: Miriam van der Meij
The horseshoe curve of the seventeenth-century canals, wrapping around the medieval center, still defines Amsterdam. Courtesy Hollandse Hoogte
With its groundbreaking orientation on the individual family and on the concepts of private space and gezdligheid, or coziness, the Dutch canal house of the seventeenth century became, in a sense, the first modern home. Photo: Tim Kil
liam
Modern canal houses in Amsterdam still employ traditional themes. They are built on the water, each made for a family, each with its own boat mooring. Photo: Miriam van der Meij
ALSO BY RUSSELL SHORTO
Descartes’ Bones
The Island at the Center of the World
Saints and Madmen
Gospel Truth