In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak

In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century
Geert Mak
Translated by Sam Garrett
(Pantheon Books, New York City: 2007)

First published in the Netherlands as In Europa by Uitgeverij Atlas, Amsterdam, c. 2004 Geert Mak.

READ: April 2009

Heather Mallick, one of my favourite Viewpoint & Analysis columnists on the CBC website, reviewed this book about 6 months ago, and I was immediately intrigued. The book instantly went on my must-read list, though in the form of a request on a long hold list at the public library.

Well, Christmas - as I like to call it when I get an email about a long-forgotten book now being held for me at the library - arrived at the beginning of April. I sunk into this book with very little hesitation, and found it quite hard to get out.

Geert Mak, a journalist for a Dutch newspaper and an acclaimed Dutch author, spent the year 1999 travelling all across Europe in search of eyewitnesses and contemporary accounts of historical events from the past century. He takes us to so many places and introduces us to so many people. The 20th century was anything but dull for Europeans. But Mak's book is not a mere recitation of facts, dates, and events. He assumes his reader already knows the basic outlines of modern history, and so, while he does spend some time giving historical and political background, he mostly explores events through the people who experienced them.

20th century Europe was not always a happy place to be, depending on where you ended up. There was so much bloodshed, so much violence, so much turmoil. Mak does a very good job at putting a human face on much of this. On the one hand, that makes things like the rise of Nazism and Hitler in 1930s socialist Germany easier to understand; on the other, it also makes things like "the Troubles" in Ireland that much more horrifying, gut-wrenching, and disturbing. Mak makes recent European history personal.

Weighing in at just over 800 pages, this is a huge book! I had to read it far too quickly, and had to absorb a lot of information, drama, and emotion in each sitting. Sometimes it overwhelmed me for that reason. But mostly it just compelled me to keep reading (even if that compulsion was occasionally caused by a feeling of "if you keep reading, things must get better"). Mak's writing is lucid and clear, his eye for detail is keen, and he knows how to tell a story in such a way that the events become very personal.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Diary of A Young Girl
Anne Frank
(Penguin Books, New York: 1997)
Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler
Translated by Susan Massotty
Originally published (in abbreviated form) in 1947

READ: April-May 2005

I think everyone has heard of this book, even if they have not read it. Like The Netherlands (Lonely Planet Guide), I read this in anticipation of our trip to Amsterdam in May. I knew that once we were there, we would be visiting the Anne Frank Museum. I knew the broad strokes of Anne Frank's story, but had never read her diary.

This version is called "The Definitive Edition". Basically, other previous editions had been published with much editing - this includes pretty much everything Anne wrote about. It is a charming and sad portrait of a young girl whose life was so drastically changed by the war. And the whole time that you read it, you are sad too, since you know how this ends, and you wish it were a "Make Your Own Adventure" book so that you could change the ending and make Anne's diary continue on beyond August 1, 1944. (On August 4, an SS sergeant and at least three Dutch members of the Security Police made their way in to the Secret Annex, likely tipped off by someone, and arrested all the occupants. Of the 8 persons who lived for about three years in the confines of the Secret Annex, only Otto Frank, Anne's father, survived the concentration camps which followed.)

I don't think I can add much more to this review. Everyone should read it. It's definitely a necessary read if you are going to visit Amsterdam and especially if you are going to see the Museum (which, in turn, is a necessary part of visiting Amsterdam). It really personalizes a dark part of recent world history, and Anne's last entry, poignantly personal, ends on a very faint note of hope, which feels even more chilling when you next read the words "Anne's diary ends here" and know what that, in fact, means. And if you can, go to the Museum, or at least visit the website.

The Netherlands (Lonely Planet Guide)

The Netherlands (Lonely Planet Guide), 2nd ed.
Jeremy Gray and Reuben Acciano
(Lonely Planet Publications, Oakland (CA): 2004)

READ: March-April 2005

Yes, everyone and their brother uses Lonely Planet guides. But there's a good reason. I am a big fan. For the most part, they are well laid-out, have easy-to-use maps, and give you good starting points for restaurants, accommodations, etc. I think the problem arises when people fail to look outside their Lonely Planet. Or when - and it happens - a restaurant or hotel gets complacent about its appearance in the Lonely Planet and lets its quality slip. But I see guidebooks as a great way to start. They are a great way to get you started in a new country, a way to figure out the key first things to see and do. But you must also let serendipity guide you, at least some of the time.

The Netherlands Lonely Planet guide provides a very good introduction to the Netherlands and Dutch culture. I read this, of course, in anticipation of our trip to Amsterdam in May. At the time, this meant I read all of the introductory material, including cycling trips around the Netherlands, as well as the lengthy entry on Amsterdam itself and the shorter (but still quite detailed) entries on Den Haag (The Hague), Rotterdam and Maastricht, all of which we planned to go to but never made it, since there is so much to do in Amsterdam itself.

The trip was, of course, more enjoyable than the book, but that certainly isn't a reflection on the quality of this book - I wouldn't leave home without it.