I received this book in the mail, due to an incredibly kind gesture from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
frumiousb. It is a history of the city by a journalist, Geert Mak, and as a history written by a journalist it no doubt lacks some depth - though one imagines that a really thorough history would take many more volumes. It was occasionally frustrating, since it often assumes a better knowledge of the city's geography and of wider Dutch history than I have, but mostly it was fascinating.
I first visted Amsterdam very briefly in 1970. One of the things I remember from that visit is the squatters' movement - in an area that I now know was the Nieuwmarkt, there were banners hanging from old gabled houses and the area was obviously prepared for some kind of battle with the cops. I had no idea at the time that this was part of something called The Twenty Year War that went on from 1965 to about 1984, involving groups called Provos and Ten Past Red, basically determining the whole direction of development of the city - and incidentally accounting for much of its character today. But going back further in the city's history you can see the threads of almost constant back-and-forth conflict between forces of authoritarianism and liberalism, or even anarchy. From that visit I also remember the rijstafel (Indonesian food in the Dutch style and very disappointing, since I'd already eaten Indonesian food in Indonesia); the Stedelijk Museum and the Rijksmuseum ( I didn't really appreciate the latter since I knew nothing at the time of the VOC and the Estates General). Mak's book was again frustrating because you get no sense at all of the extent to which Amsterdam's prosperity derived from the sheer impoverishment of Indonesians. I also purchased an antique wayang golek - I'd seen a performance in Bandung (all 7 hours of it, finishing at 3 am), but never saw one of the puppets on sale until I got to Amsterdam!
My next two visits were stays of about a month each, for work in the archives of the Tropical Museum. I stayed in one of those gabled houses on the Amstel, near Waterlooplein and one of those quaint bridges, and the next time on a canal, the name of which I cannot remember, but it was somewhere east of the Oudekerk and I my daily commute by tram involved first of all walking through the red light district to the street that runs between Central Station and the Dam. Of course it was fascinating to stay in a place that has such tolerant attitudes to prostitution and drugs. The shop window approach was so up front compared to the discreetness of the trade (even now) in Australia. I confess to having wanted to stare, without daring to (I was young then). One of my hosts, who worked for the radio, had interviewed a lot of people who described themselves as 'artistes'. Not what you associate with Calvinism at all. But I was fascinated most of all by the architecture of the houses I lived in: the staircases that were more like ladders than stairs, the loo in a closet jutting into the main hallway, the primitive bathing facilities, the air-well between the front and back parts of the houses, the huge windows that nobody bothers to curtain that make the houses so light. Mak doesn't have enough in his book about these buildings. He does describe the gabled facades as 'curtain' walls that could be changed if a change of style was wanted. He also describes the origins of the openness to viewing from the street in an earlier tradition of making the front room an almost public domain rather than a private living space. Next door to the Amstel house was a violin maker in a basement. I spent lots of time standing on the pavement watching him at his craft.
Mak mentions the author Eduard Douwes Dekker (Multatuli) several times. He was born in 1820 and Mak cites, in particular, a book (Woutertje Pieterse) satirizing typical Amsterdam citizens. I know of him only through his more famous book Max Havelaar (also a fantastic movie, including an early performance by Rutger Hauer) about the corruption of Dutch colonial administration in the East Indies. But by the 19th century Amsterdam was already past its peak as a trading city. By the time of my fourth visit (staying in a hotel near the Leidseplein) I knew a lot more about this colonial history and the glory days of the VOC and spent ages in the Rijksmuseum pondering those collective portraits of the city's elite. They were willing to put their own citizens to death for not paying the rent, so I'm sure the Indonesians didn't trouble them at all. The hubris jumps out at you, despite the modest dress and staid surroundings. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the celebrated Indonesian writer, went as far as to claim that Max Havelaar was the book that brought colonialism down. A more sober view might be that it was more a reflection of the decay of a system that had made Amsterdam a great city. Still, I can hardly believe that I was at a conference on that visit at the University of Amsterdam the campus of which incorporates the old VOC headquarters!
I should also mention the stuff in the book about World War 2 and the fate of the Jewish community. This chapter really brings out the conflict between the forces of 'order' and the more rebellious citizens. Contrary to the Nazi stereotype, Mak makes it clear that the Jewish community of Amsterdam was poor (even though some of them, profiting from the 18th century diamond trade, managed to build a big synagogue - the Portuguese synagogue - that I visited on my most recent trip). Also, while rescuing Jews was part of the resistance project, it doesn't seem to have been central; in Mak's view the resistance was mostly about providing aid to families whose men had joined the Allies. It makes a great story of pulling the wool over the eyes of the Germans - in which the heroes are a pair of bankers. In the last winter of the war starving and freezing Amsterdammers plundered the abandoned Jewish (and other) homes for timber to burn for fuel, eventually causing the old houses to collapse. (I've heard about that winter before, from a woman who lived through it). After the war, resistance leaders and collaborators co-operated to restore something like the pre-War order. Wittingly or not, he provides a rather chilling account of the actual lack of concern of Amsterdammers with the fate of the Jews.
Mak depicts the next decades as part of the ongoing struggle between powerful elite and rebellious minority, with a complacent majority somewhere between. It is fascinating, but also disturbing. Throughout the book Mak has discussed the waves of migration that built the present structure of the city. Nowadays, there is a new wave of migration and, at the same time, emigration to the outlying towns and suburbs. Like the former Jewish quarter, other parts of the city have become populated by outsiders - the colonial backwash from Suriname, Indonesia, etc. - forming localised communities. Now, instead of linking the new migrants to positive elements of growth as in earlier times, Mak (like many others) links them to unemployment and crime.
So, while reading this book I've managed to recall no less than five visits to Amsterdam between 1970 and 2003. Now I want to go back and explore some of the areas that this book discusses - parts I've seen without having a clue what they were and parts I've never seen at all.
The Rijksmuseum, November 2003.
frumiousb. It is a history of the city by a journalist, Geert Mak, and as a history written by a journalist it no doubt lacks some depth - though one imagines that a really thorough history would take many more volumes. It was occasionally frustrating, since it often assumes a better knowledge of the city's geography and of wider Dutch history than I have, but mostly it was fascinating.I first visted Amsterdam very briefly in 1970. One of the things I remember from that visit is the squatters' movement - in an area that I now know was the Nieuwmarkt, there were banners hanging from old gabled houses and the area was obviously prepared for some kind of battle with the cops. I had no idea at the time that this was part of something called The Twenty Year War that went on from 1965 to about 1984, involving groups called Provos and Ten Past Red, basically determining the whole direction of development of the city - and incidentally accounting for much of its character today. But going back further in the city's history you can see the threads of almost constant back-and-forth conflict between forces of authoritarianism and liberalism, or even anarchy. From that visit I also remember the rijstafel (Indonesian food in the Dutch style and very disappointing, since I'd already eaten Indonesian food in Indonesia); the Stedelijk Museum and the Rijksmuseum ( I didn't really appreciate the latter since I knew nothing at the time of the VOC and the Estates General). Mak's book was again frustrating because you get no sense at all of the extent to which Amsterdam's prosperity derived from the sheer impoverishment of Indonesians. I also purchased an antique wayang golek - I'd seen a performance in Bandung (all 7 hours of it, finishing at 3 am), but never saw one of the puppets on sale until I got to Amsterdam!
My next two visits were stays of about a month each, for work in the archives of the Tropical Museum. I stayed in one of those gabled houses on the Amstel, near Waterlooplein and one of those quaint bridges, and the next time on a canal, the name of which I cannot remember, but it was somewhere east of the Oudekerk and I my daily commute by tram involved first of all walking through the red light district to the street that runs between Central Station and the Dam. Of course it was fascinating to stay in a place that has such tolerant attitudes to prostitution and drugs. The shop window approach was so up front compared to the discreetness of the trade (even now) in Australia. I confess to having wanted to stare, without daring to (I was young then). One of my hosts, who worked for the radio, had interviewed a lot of people who described themselves as 'artistes'. Not what you associate with Calvinism at all. But I was fascinated most of all by the architecture of the houses I lived in: the staircases that were more like ladders than stairs, the loo in a closet jutting into the main hallway, the primitive bathing facilities, the air-well between the front and back parts of the houses, the huge windows that nobody bothers to curtain that make the houses so light. Mak doesn't have enough in his book about these buildings. He does describe the gabled facades as 'curtain' walls that could be changed if a change of style was wanted. He also describes the origins of the openness to viewing from the street in an earlier tradition of making the front room an almost public domain rather than a private living space. Next door to the Amstel house was a violin maker in a basement. I spent lots of time standing on the pavement watching him at his craft.
Mak mentions the author Eduard Douwes Dekker (Multatuli) several times. He was born in 1820 and Mak cites, in particular, a book (Woutertje Pieterse) satirizing typical Amsterdam citizens. I know of him only through his more famous book Max Havelaar (also a fantastic movie, including an early performance by Rutger Hauer) about the corruption of Dutch colonial administration in the East Indies. But by the 19th century Amsterdam was already past its peak as a trading city. By the time of my fourth visit (staying in a hotel near the Leidseplein) I knew a lot more about this colonial history and the glory days of the VOC and spent ages in the Rijksmuseum pondering those collective portraits of the city's elite. They were willing to put their own citizens to death for not paying the rent, so I'm sure the Indonesians didn't trouble them at all. The hubris jumps out at you, despite the modest dress and staid surroundings. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the celebrated Indonesian writer, went as far as to claim that Max Havelaar was the book that brought colonialism down. A more sober view might be that it was more a reflection of the decay of a system that had made Amsterdam a great city. Still, I can hardly believe that I was at a conference on that visit at the University of Amsterdam the campus of which incorporates the old VOC headquarters!
I should also mention the stuff in the book about World War 2 and the fate of the Jewish community. This chapter really brings out the conflict between the forces of 'order' and the more rebellious citizens. Contrary to the Nazi stereotype, Mak makes it clear that the Jewish community of Amsterdam was poor (even though some of them, profiting from the 18th century diamond trade, managed to build a big synagogue - the Portuguese synagogue - that I visited on my most recent trip). Also, while rescuing Jews was part of the resistance project, it doesn't seem to have been central; in Mak's view the resistance was mostly about providing aid to families whose men had joined the Allies. It makes a great story of pulling the wool over the eyes of the Germans - in which the heroes are a pair of bankers. In the last winter of the war starving and freezing Amsterdammers plundered the abandoned Jewish (and other) homes for timber to burn for fuel, eventually causing the old houses to collapse. (I've heard about that winter before, from a woman who lived through it). After the war, resistance leaders and collaborators co-operated to restore something like the pre-War order. Wittingly or not, he provides a rather chilling account of the actual lack of concern of Amsterdammers with the fate of the Jews.
Mak depicts the next decades as part of the ongoing struggle between powerful elite and rebellious minority, with a complacent majority somewhere between. It is fascinating, but also disturbing. Throughout the book Mak has discussed the waves of migration that built the present structure of the city. Nowadays, there is a new wave of migration and, at the same time, emigration to the outlying towns and suburbs. Like the former Jewish quarter, other parts of the city have become populated by outsiders - the colonial backwash from Suriname, Indonesia, etc. - forming localised communities. Now, instead of linking the new migrants to positive elements of growth as in earlier times, Mak (like many others) links them to unemployment and crime.
So, while reading this book I've managed to recall no less than five visits to Amsterdam between 1970 and 2003. Now I want to go back and explore some of the areas that this book discusses - parts I've seen without having a clue what they were and parts I've never seen at all.
The Rijksmuseum, November 2003.
