Amsterdam – A History of the World’s Most Liberal City –

“In this ever-surprising and effortlessly erudite portrait, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam and examines its role as the fount of liberalism. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, he delivers a delightful and intellectually engaging story of the city from the building of the first canals in the 1300s through its brutal struggle for independence and its golden age as a vast empire,to its complex present in which its cherished ideals are being questioned anew.”