Amsterdam Noir

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“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Akashic Airlines flight 1595 to Amsterdam.”

Sometime between 1250 and 1275 AD, a small group of Dutch farmers dammed the Amstel, an unimpressive river that emptied into a nearby bay called the IJ. They built houses around the dam and the river, and so the village of Amstelredam was born. Over the years, as the village grew, its name eventually shortened to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam came into its own in the seventeenth century, the Dutch Golden Age, when it blossomed into both an important trade center and an equally important cultural center, home to many writers, such as P.C. Hooft and Joost van den Vondel, and artists like Rembrandt van Rijn and Govert Flinck.

The eighteenth century was a relatively quiet time for The Netherlands. While the country rested on its laurels, the city’s population remained relatively stable. Only in the course of the nineteenth century did a new sense of vigor arise, and the 1800s are remembered as Amsterdam’s second Golden Age.

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