Belgium & the Netherlands

Why the Dutch Are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands

Ben Coates

Part history and part travelogue, this is an insider's account of how a small, flat country came to shape so much of the world. Coates explains the Dutch culture of tolerance and why milk, beer, and the color orange matter so much there.

Designed for Dry Feet: Flood Protection and Land Reclamation in the Netherlands

Robert J. Hoeksema

Few nations have shaped their own ground as completely as the Netherlands, a country built on the delta of three great rivers. Hoeksema traces more than a thousand years of dikes, drainage, and reclaimed land, the engineering underneath every Dutch landscape.

The Dutch and Their Delta

Jacob Vossestein

Dikes, polders, windmills, and storm surge barriers are the familiar icons of a nation that lives largely below sea level. Vossestein explains how it all actually works, which turns every canal and meadow into something you can read.

The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire

Bart van Loo

For a brief, brilliant stretch of the Middle Ages, the Dukes of Burgundy ruled a realm of great wealth and artistry stretching from Dijon to Bruges. Van Loo tells how that empire rose, then vanished from the map, and left behind the Low Countries we know today.

Niccolò Rising: The First Book of The House of Niccolò

Dorothy Dunnett

In 15th-century Bruges, a good-natured dyer's apprentice schemes his way toward the head of a merchant empire. This richly detailed historical novel brings the canals, counting houses, and courtly intrigue of Burgundian Flanders to life.

Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City

Russell Shorto

Shorto follows the city from its first canals in the 1300s through the fight for Dutch independence, a golden age at the head of a global empire, and its complicated present. It is a lively account of how Amsterdam's liberal ideals were formed, and why they are still contested.

Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World

Stephen R. Bown

Before the age of empires, trading companies governed whole territories, and the Dutch East and West India Companies were among the most powerful. Bown profiles the merchant-adventurers behind them, along with their British, Russian, and Canadian rivals, and shows how commerce drew the modern map.

Tulipomania

Mike Dash

In the 1630s, thousands of sober, hardworking Dutch citizens were swept up in a frenzy of buying and selling tulip bulbs. Dash tells the story of the flower's extraordinary rise and sudden collapse, and of the prosperous trading cities where it all took place.

The Embarrassment of Riches

Simon Schama

Drawing on paintings and period documents, Schama explores a nation that invented itself from nothing, grew wealthier than any before it, and lived in constant fear of being corrupted by its own good fortune. It is the definitive portrait of the Dutch Golden Age mind.

Master of Shadows

Mark Lamster

Peter Paul Rubens was celebrated as the greatest painter of his age, and his reputation for tact made him a trusted guest at courts across Europe. Lamster reveals the Antwerp master's second career as a secret diplomat, one that shaped the politics of the 17th century.

Belgium: Long United, Long Divided

Samuel Humes

This accessible history traces two thousand years of shared identity, government, and nationhood in Belgium. It also explains the Flemish and Walloon divide that has grown in recent decades and now tests the country's unity.

War and Turpentine

Stefan Hertmans

Working from the notebooks his grandfather filled over a lifetime, a Flemish writer reconstructs the story of a man whose loves and art were upended by the First World War. It is a quiet, vivid novel about memory and painting, and about the Flanders fields that still hold that war.

The Undutchables: An Observation of the Netherlands, Its Culture and Its Inhabitants

Colin White and Laurie Boucke

A witty and affectionate look at Dutch customs and the mindset behind them, from coffee rituals and child rearing to train travel. It ends the list on a light note, ready for the everyday life you will meet on arrival.