Why the Dutch are Different

Why the Dutch are Different PDF Author: Ben Coates
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
ISBN: 1473645298
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good. In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. It is a self-made country, the Dutch national character shaped by the ongoing battle to keep the water out from the love of dairy and beer to the attitude to nature and the famous tolerance. Ben Coates investigates what makes the Dutch the Dutch, why the Netherlands is much more than Holland and why the color orange is so important. Along the way he reveals why they are the world's tallest people and have the best carnival outside Brazil. He learns why Amsterdam's brothels are going out of business, who really killed Anne Frank, and how the Dutch manage to be richer than almost everyone else despite working far less. He also discovers a country which is changing fast, with the Dutch now questioning many of the liberal policies which made their nation famous.

Why the Dutch are Different

Why the Dutch are Different PDF Author: Ben Coates
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
ISBN: 1473645298
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good. In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. It is a self-made country, the Dutch national character shaped by the ongoing battle to keep the water out from the love of dairy and beer to the attitude to nature and the famous tolerance. Ben Coates investigates what makes the Dutch the Dutch, why the Netherlands is much more than Holland and why the color orange is so important. Along the way he reveals why they are the world's tallest people and have the best carnival outside Brazil. He learns why Amsterdam's brothels are going out of business, who really killed Anne Frank, and how the Dutch manage to be richer than almost everyone else despite working far less. He also discovers a country which is changing fast, with the Dutch now questioning many of the liberal policies which made their nation famous.

The Netherlands in a Nutshell

The Netherlands in a Nutshell PDF Author: Frits van Oostrom
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9089640398
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
Vijftig tijdperken, gebeurtenissen en personen die bepalend zijn geweest voor het beeld van de geschiedenis van Nederland vanaf de vroegste tijden tot heden.

The Dutch House

The Dutch House PDF Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062963694
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Pulitzer Prize Finalist | New York Times Bestseller | A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick | A New York Times Book Review Notable Book | TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post; O: The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Refinery29, and Buzzfeed From Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, comes a powerful, richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are. At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures. Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

Movement

Movement PDF Author: Thalia Verkade
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642833452
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
“This book will—no question—make you think in new ways. Why have we surrendered our cities to cars? What might it be like to inhabit a space designed for people instead? It’s exciting and hopeful—this we can do!” —Bill McKibben, author of The Flag, The Cross, and the Station Wagon Almost everywhere in the world, streets are designed for travel at the highest speed, giving precedence to the chunkiest vehicles. We take for granted that the streets outside of our homes are designed only for movement from one point to another. But what happens if we radically rethink how we use these public spaces? Could we change our lives for the better? In Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives, journalist Thalia Verkade and mobility expert (“the cycling professor”) Marco te Brömmelstroet take a three-year shared journey of discovery into the possibilities of our streets. They investigate and question the choices and mechanisms underpinning how these public spaces are designed and look at how they could be different. Verkade and te Brömmelstroet draw inspiration from the Netherlands and look at what other countries are doing, and could do, to diversify how they use their streets and make them safer. During the pandemic, decision-makers in cities around the world were confronted with the questions of who our streets belong to, how we want to use them, and who gets to decide. Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking these fundamental questions. To truly transform mobility, we need to look far beyond the technical aspects and put people at the center of urban design. Movement will change the way that you view our streets.

Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops

Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops PDF Author: Nicoline Sijs van der
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9089641246
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
In this volume, the renowned linguist Nicoline van der Sijs glosses over some 300 Dutch loan words that travelled to the New World between the 17th and the 20th century.

The Dutch Wife

The Dutch Wife PDF Author: Ellen Keith
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488098662
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
A sweeping story of love and survival during World War II AMSTERDAM, MAY 1943. As the tulips bloom and the Nazis tighten their grip across the city, the last signs of Dutch resistance are being swept away. Marijke de Graaf and her husband are arrested and deported to different concentration camps in Germany. Marijke is given a terrible choice: to suffer a slow death in the labor camp or—for a chance at survival—to join the camp brothel. On the other side of the barbed wire, SS officer Karl MŸller arrives at the camp hoping to live up to his father’s expectations of wartime glory. When he encounters the newly arrived Marijke, this meeting changes their lives forever. Woven into the narrative across space and time is Luciano Wagner’s ordeal in 1977 Buenos Aires, during the heat of the Argentine Dirty War. In his struggle to endure military captivity, he searches for ways to resist from a prison cell he may never leave. From the Netherlands to Germany to Argentina, The Dutch Wife braids together the stories of three individuals who share a dark secret and are entangled in two of the most oppressive reigns of terror in modern history. This is a novel about the blurred lines between love and lust, abuse and resistance, and right and wrong, as well as the capacity for ordinary people to persevere and do the unthinkable in extraordinary circumstances. Don’t miss THE DUTCH ORPHAN! Ellen's next riveting novel set about a woman who must choose between family loyalty and her own safety.

Discovering the Dutch

Discovering the Dutch PDF Author: Jaap Verheul
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9048526094
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
What are the most salient and sparking facts about the Netherlands? This updated edition of 'Discovering the Dutch' tackles the heart of the question of Dutch identity through a number of essential themes that span the culture, history and society of the Netherlands. Running the gamut from the Randstad to the Dutch Golden Age, from William of Orange to Anne Frank, this volume uses a series of vignettes written by academic experts in their fields to address historical and contemporary topics such as immigration, tolerance, and the struggle against water, as well as issues of culture - painting, literature, architecture, and design among them. All chapters are written by academic experts in their fields who have extensive experience in explaining the many features of "Dutchness" to a foreign audience. Each chapter comes to life in vignettes that illustrate characteristic historical figures or essential aspects in Dutch culture and society from William of Orange and Anne Frank to Dutch cheese and the inevitable coffeeshop.

The Rhine

The Rhine PDF Author: Ben Coates
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
ISBN: 9781473665095
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD The Rhine is one of the world's greatest rivers. Once forming the outer frontier of the Roman Empire, it flows 800 miles from the social democratic playground of the Netherlands, through the industrial and political powerhouses of Germany and France, to the wealthy mountain fortresses of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. For five years, Ben Coates lived alongside a major channel of the river in Rotterdam, crossing it daily, swimming and sailing in its tributaries. In The Rhine, he sets out by bicycle from the Netherlands where it enters the North Sea, following it through Germany, France and Liechtenstein, to where its source in the icy Alps. He explores the impact that the Rhine has had on European culture and history and finds out how influences have flowed along and across the river, shaping the people who live alongside it. Blending travelogue and offbeat history, The Rhine tells the fascinating story of how a great river helped shape a continent.

The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories

The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories PDF Author: Joost Zwagerman
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141395737
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 661

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Book Description
'The stories here will provoke, delight and impress. Joost Zwagerman's selection forms a fascinating guidebook to a landscape you'll surely want to wander in again.' Clare Lowden, TLS 'There is a lot of northern European melancholy in the collection, though often tinged with wry humour...an excellent book' Jonathan Gibbs, Minor Literatures 'We were kids - but good kids. If I may say so myself. We're much smarter now, so smart it's pathetic. Except for Bavink, who went crazy' A husband forms gruesome plans for his new fridge; a government employee has a haunting experience on his commute home; prisoners serve as entertainment for wealthy party guests; an army officer suffers a monstrous tropical illness. These short stories contain some of the most groundbreaking and innovative writing in Dutch literature from 1915 to the present day, with most pieces appearing here in English for the first time. Blending unforgettable snapshots of the realities of everyday life with surrealism, fantasy and subversion, this collection shows Dutch writing to be an integral part of world literary history. Joost Zwagerman (1963-2015) was a novelist, poet, essayist and editor of several anthologies. He started his career as a writer with bestselling novels, describing the atmosphere of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Gimmick!(1988) and False Light (1991). In later years, he concentrated on writing essays - notably on pop culture and visual arts - and poetry. Suicide was the theme of the novel Six Stars (2002). He took his own life just after having published a new collection of essays on art, The Museum of Light.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam PDF Author: Russell Shorto
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385534582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
An endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed Island at the Center of the World Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography-the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay and the democratic philosophy that this enduring struggle fostered. Amsterdam is the font of liberalism, in both its senses. Tolerance for free thinking and free love make it a place where, in the words of one of its mayors, "craziness is a value." But the city also fostered the deeper meaning of liberalism, one that profoundly influenced America: political and economic freedom. Amsterdam was home not only to religious dissidents and radical thinkers but to the world's first great global corporation. In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a sixteenth-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch-and world-history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam.