{"id":156,"date":"2010-02-21T00:00:51","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T04:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=156"},"modified":"2014-07-18T14:18:07","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T14:18:07","slug":"geert-mak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/geert-mak\/","title":{"rendered":"Geert Mak : A Short History about Amsterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Geert Mak is a Dutch author and historian who writes mostly about the history of the Netherlands, though has also written quite extensively on European history.\u00a0 One of the reasons I really like Geert Mak as an author is that his use of language is superb.\u00a0 His writing is thoughtful and also thought provoking.\u00a0 If you have a general interest in history, or you want to know a little more about Dutch culture and history, his works are a great place to start.<\/p>\n

Last year I read “Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City,” in English.\u00a0 At that time my Dutch language skills were not up to the point where I could read and enjoy reading at the same time.\u00a0 That takes a lot of practice!\u00a0 This year I can read it in Dutch, and it really has made a huge difference in how much I appreciate this author.\u00a0 Last year I became infuriated with the book in English.\u00a0 The English version is fraught with typos, horrendous translation errors, and the occasional sentence consisting of almost nonsense words.\u00a0 I don’t know how it made it to publication in its current state, but somehow it did, wound up on the shelves, and landed in my lap.\u00a0 At the time, I knew that Geert Mak came highly recommended by those around me, so I was willing to chalk it up to bad editing and checked out his website after huffing and puffing my way through the book.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.geertmak.nl\/<\/a><\/p>\n

After checking out the site, which is also in English and German, and reading a speech he had given at the time, I came to the conclusion that the author probably wasn’t to blame for this incredible disservice to his writing skills.<\/p>\n

Now here I am, a year later, and proof that with a little (okay more honestly A LOT) of time and effort, it is possible to master a language, or at least get pretty far with it.\u00a0 If you are interested in an overall history of Amsterdam, from the very beginning until now, then you might want to pick up this book.\u00a0 If you are interested in pushing your Dutch skills a little farther, then I would definitely recommend picking up this book.\u00a0 It’s not easy.\u00a0 It’s very literary.\u00a0 It’s well worth the reward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Geert Mak is a Dutch author and historian who writes mostly about the history of the Netherlands, though has also written quite extensively on European history.\u00a0 One of the reasons I really like Geert Mak as an author is that his use of language is superb.\u00a0 His writing is thoughtful and also thought provoking.\u00a0…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3590],"tags":[3128,3,3634,178,2447],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dutch-language","tag-books","tag-culture","tag-geert-mak","tag-history","tag-reading"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2731,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/2731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}