This is the first 'biography' of the city of Amsterdam - in the same vein as Peter Ackroyd's London.

'Rich and eventful ... a book that easily fuses large cultural trends with intimately personal stories' New York Times

'The story of a great city that has shaped the soul of the world. Masterful reporting, vivid history - the past and present are equally alive in this book' James Gleick, author of The Information: a History, a Theory, a Flood

'Shorto's fine portraits of individuals are in the Amsterdam tradition, and he has an Amsterdammer's feel for this backwater town that remains the world's laboratory of liberalism' Financial Times

In this ever-surprising and effortlessly erudite portrait, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam and examines its role as the font 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 the brutal struggle for Dutch independence and its golden age as the capital of a vast empire, to its complex present in which its cherished ideals are being questioned anew.

'An often brilliant - and always enjoyable - investigation of liberalism's Dutch roots. Shorto is once again revealed as a passionate and persuasive historian of culture and ideas' Joseph O'Neill, author of Netherland