The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident

Istanbul’s Galata Bridge has spanned the Golden Horn since the sixth century AD, connecting the old city with the more Western districts to the north. But the bridge is a city in itself, peopled by merchants and petty thieves, tourists and fishermen, and at the same time a microcosmic reflection of Turkey as the link between Asia and Europe. Geert Mak introduces us to the woman who sells lottery tickets, the cigarette vendors, and the best pickpockets in Europe. He tells us about the pride of the cobbler and the tea-seller's homesickness. And he describes the role of honor in Turkish culture, the temptations of fundamentalism and violence, and the urge to survive, even in the face of despair. These stories of the bridge’s denizens are interwoven with vignettes illuminating moments in the history of Istanbul and Turkey and shedding light on Turkey’s relationship with Europe and the West, the Armenian question, the migration from the Turkish countryside to the city, and the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

History

MAK, GEERT

Europe

Vintage, UK

A fascinating account from a highly acclaimed writer of the life and charming inhabitants of a typical countryside village, and how it must adapt and change in order to survive in the modern world The countryside is in crisis. The shops are closing down in the villages, there is no school for miles around and, when they grow up, the few remaining children will escape to a less arduous life in the city. The village as we have known it for centuries must adapt to survive, but what will be lost in the process? In this book Geert Mak returns to the small Netherlands village of his childhood, Jorwerd (pop. 330 and falling), and meets the present-day Jorwerders: a stubborn, stoic people for whom the flat, windswept landscape has been a source of livelihood for generations, but is now rarely more than a tourist attraction. He has tea with the butcher's wife, drops in on the pub for a beer, and recounts the stirring story of Old Peet, a farmhand who was born, lived, and died in Jorwerd. Such men are an extinct species in the new free-market Europe and, with his passing, the village he lived in moved a step along the road of terminal decline. Jorwerd is a paradigm for the changing face of the countryside around the world, but Mak discovers that Jorward posesses, despite its travails, a neighborliness and sense of community that no longer exist in urban life, while ancient families struggle to preserve their long-established way of lifein a world obsessed with money and profit.

An Island in Time: The Biography of a Village

RANDOM HOUSE UK

From the First World War to the waning days of the Cold War, a poignant exploration on what it means to be European at the end of the twentieth-century. Geert Mak crisscrosses Europe from Verdun to Berlin, Saint Petersburg to Srebrenica in search of evidence and witnesses of the last hundred years of Europe. Using his skills as an acclaimed journalist, Mak locates the smaller, personal stories within the epic arc of history-talking to a former ticket-taker at the gates of the Birkenau concentration camp or noting the neat rows of tiny shoes in the abandoned nursery school in the shadow of Chernobyl. His unique approach makes the reader an eyewitness to a half-forgotten past, full of unknown peculiarities, sudden insights and touching encounters. Sweeping in scale, but intimate in detail In Europe is a masterpiece.

In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century

Vintage

Geert Mak spent the year of 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, Saint Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the condition of Europe at the verge of a new millennium. The result is mesmerizing: Mak’s rare double talent as a sharp-eyed journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes In Europe a dazzling account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, and the voices of prominent figures and unknown players; from the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Adrinana Warno in Poland, with her job at the gates of the camp at Birkenau. But Mak is above all an observer. He describes what he sees at places that have become Europe’s wellsprings of memory, where history is written into the landscape. At Ypres, he hears the blast of munitions from the Great War that are still detonated there twice a day. In Warsaw, he finds the point where the tram rails that led to the Jewish ghetto come to a dead end in a city park. And in an abandoned nursery school near Chernobyl, where tiny pairs of shoes still stand in neat rows, he is transported back to the moment time stood still in the dying days of the Soviet Union. Mak combines the larger story of twentieth-century Europe with details that give it a face, a taste and a smell. His unique approach makes the reader an eyewitness to a half-forgotten past, full of unknown peculiarities, sudden insights and touching encounters. In Europe is a masterpiece; it reads like the epic novel of Europe’s most extraordinary century.

Pantheon

Amsterdam

Cosmopolitan, stylish, even a little decadent, Amsterdam--"the Venice of the North"--is a city of legendary beauty. From a twelfth-century settlement of wooden huts at the mouth of the River Amstel, it had become by the late sixteenth century one of the great cultural capitals of Europe and a major financial center. 
 In this gracefully written examination of Amsterdam's soul--part history, part travel guide--the Dutch writer Geert Mak imaginatively depicts the lives of early Amsterdammers and traces the city's progress from a small town of merchants, sailors, farmers, and fishermen to a thriving metropolis. Mak's Amsterdam is a city of dreams and nightmares, of grand civic architecture and magnificent monuments, but also of civil wars, uprisings, and bloody religious purges. In his delightfully instructive journey through the city and through time, Mak displays an eye for the bizarre and the unexpected: a Rembrandt sketch of a young girl executed for manslaughter; the shoe of a medieval lady unearthed during a remodeling project; a graffito foretelling the city's doom on the wall of a mansion, daubed by a deranged burgomaster with his own blood. 
 Amsterdam remains a magnet for travelers from around the world, and this charmingly detailed account of its origins and its history through the present day is designed to help the reader step into daily life in a truly modern city.

Harvard University Press

In Europe

Please Read Notes: Brand New, International Softcover Edition, Printed in black and white pages, minor self wear on the cover or pages, Sale restriction may be printed on the book, but Book name, contents, and author are exactly same as Hardcover Edition. Fast delivery through DHL/FedEx express.

Vintage Classics

In America: Travels with John Steinbeck

Travel

Travel Writing

DAEDALUS

Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City

In this examination of Amsterdam's soul, part history, part travel guide, the Dutch writer Geert Mak imaginatively depicts the lives of the early Amsterdammers and traces the city's progress from a little town of merchants, sailors, farmers and fishermen into a thriving metropolis. He also provides his own insights into the psyche of Amsterdam's citizens: their concern for free speech and the rights of the individual, their characteristic sobriety and how their famous tolerance was put to the test and found lacking under the German Occupation, when many of the city's Jews (most notoriously Anne Frank) were betrayed by their neighbours.Mak's Amsterdam is a city of dreams and nightmares, of grand civic architecture and magnificent monuments, but also of civil wars, uprisings, and bloody religious purges. In his instructive journey through the city and through time, Mak displays an eye for the bizarre and the unexpected: a medieval lady's shoe unearthed during building work; a Rembrandt sketch of a hanged girl; a graffito foretelling the city's doom on the wall of a mansion, daubed by a deranged burgomaster with his own blood.

Harvill Pr

A magnet for trade and travelers from all over the world, stylish, cosmopolitan Amsterdam is a city of dreams and nightmares, of grand civic architecture and legendary beauty, but also of civil wars, bloody religious purges, and the tragedy of Anne Frank. In this fascinating examination of the city's soul, part history, part travel guide, Geert Mak imaginatively recreates the lives of the early Amsterdammers, and traces Amsterdam's progress from waterlogged settlement to a major financial center and thriving modern metropolis

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MAK, GEERT. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by MAK, GEERT

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MAK, GEERT. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident

An Island in Time: The Biography of a Village

In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century

In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century

Amsterdam

Amsterdam

In Europe

In America: Travels with John Steinbeck

Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City

Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City