‘Amsterdam 750 Years’ tells the city’s history as it has never been told before. Through hundreds of stories – about unknown Amsterdammers, remarkable places, and the many people who passed through the city – it reveals a vibrant and complex past. Migrants, traders, scientists, church ministers, slum landlords, laborers, scavengers, and capitalists are brought to life. This isn’t a history of the great white men with starched white collars. Instead it is about Rembrandt’s Black neighbors, the construction of the Greek Orthodox church, the day an elephant arrived in the city, the battle between socialists and police in Café Zincken, and how immigrants from the former Dutch East Indies brought rock ‘n’ roll to the Geuzenveld neighborhood in the 1950s.
“So much history, so many stories, so many lives: Our Amsterdam is the city’s most exciting treasure trove.”
– Geert Mak
