Let’s talk about Europe, those United States of Babel. British comedian Eddie Izzard once said: ‘I grew up in Europe, where history comes from.’ All witticisms aside, he does have a point when we’re talking about the preoccupation with history. Take Geert Mak, for instance, one of the most popular writers in the Netherlands and the author of numerous bestselling books of non-fiction. History and a keen sense of that history are part and parcel of all his books. Charles Ford had this to say about Mak's concise history of
Amsterdam in
The Low Countries: ‘It is not an academic history, it is a general interest history; it is not a reference book, it is a personal document; it is not a short history, it is a small history.’ Mak seems to have a knack for small history. Another book of his,
Jorwerd: The Death of the Village in Late Twentieth-Century Europe, is the account of the slow death of the small village in the northern province of Friesland where the author spent his youth. But it’s a small step from...well…small history to the big picture. As
Publishers Weekly so rightly remarked
: ‘In this study of a small village in the northern Netherlands, Mak describes the demise of this tradition as a part of the vast cultural transformation that has taken place from 1945 to the present. (…) Mak's study of Jorwerd is a mirror for other countries where farming life is on the wane.’
But when Mak left Amsterdam on Monday morning, 4 January, 1999, a storm rampaging through town, he was on to bigger things still. For the next year or so he travelled not only through Europe but also through a century on the verge of coming to an end. The result was
In Europe, a book that is available in English too since last year. And last week this book and all the others he wrote over the last ten years got him the
Preis zur Europäischen Verständigung in Leipzig. This German Prize goes to an author who has contributed with his writing to stimulate and improve the dialogue between the countries of Europe.
In Europe shows the author as an astute observer. Places become wellsprings of memory, and history unfolds through the landscape Mak becomes part of for a brief moment. The English translation has been advertised as ‘the epic novel of Europe’s most extraordinary century’. Its readers become eyewitnesses to a half-forgotten past made visible again by Mak from a myriad of impressions, insights and encounters. Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World, stressed Maks personal approach: ‘Twentieth-century history is sober business, yet In Europe is practically effervescent in its evocation of detail. Mak doesn't write about Auschwitz and the ethnically cleansed alleys of Srebrenica so much as personally lead you among the concrete walls of these places that have shaped our self-awareness.’
Meanwhile In Europe has acquired a second life in the Netherlands and Flanders as a TV-series. It added to Mak’s fame, and fame comes at a price. Dutch historians have accused Mak of historical relativism, exploiting tired clichés and making plain mistakes, but Mak has stayed calm and put a reply on his website. He points out that some plain mistakes are no mistakes at all and concludes: ‘I still think it’s quite an achievement to judge a series solely based on one-and-a-half episode. But now we have to wonder: is that true historiography?’ Other mistakes are clearly a matter of interpretation. But above all, Mak is spot-on when he remarks that the series hasn't aired in full yet and that it’s still way too soon for a judgement. After all, doesn’t good criticism always gain from letting things settle for a while? We could even call that the benefit of historical hindsight.
Amsterdam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000 & London: Harvill, 2001.
Jorwerd: The Death of the Village in Late Twentieth-Century. London: Harvill, 2000.
In Europe. Travels through the Twentieth Century. London: Harvill Secker, 2007 & New York: Pantheon, 2007.
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