''Standard kit for anyone visiting the city'' Guardian ''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'' James GleickIn 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 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.