{"product_id":"book-ax70","title":"Amsterdam","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed \u003ci\u003eIsland at the Center of the World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 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 from the building of its  first canals in the 1300s, through its brutal struggle for independence,  its golden age as a vast empire, to its complex present in which its  cherished ideals of liberalism are under siege.","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49335752753456,"sku":"BDax70","price":22.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/95622-ax70-Square.jpg?v=1733936459","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-ax70","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}