Netherlands
The Far Countries, Volume 6
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.99/mo for 3 months + £10 Audible bonus
Auto-renews at £5.99/month after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Offer ends on 28 December, 2026.
Netherlands
Narrated by:
AI Voice Female Synthesized Voice
Buy Now for £7.96
-
Narrated by:
-
AI Voice Female Synthesized Voice
-
By:
-
Atlas Greaves
This title uses virtual voice narration
Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.
Summary
The Netherlands is a country that had to build its own floor.
A quarter of the Netherlands lies below the level of the sea, and almost all of it is below sea level because it was drained. Pump the water off a peat bog and the peat burns away into the air, and the ground sinks, and every generation's solution hands the next one a deeper problem. There is no original Dutch landscape underneath. There is only the version being maintained tonight, by pumps that are running while you read this.
Ground of that kind cannot be built by anyone alone. A dike protects the man who did not help raise it and fails where it is weakest. So the Dutch invented the machinery of compulsory cooperation, the water board, with its tax, its inspector and its court, eight centuries ago, and have been running the country that way ever since.
From a runway on the floor of a drained lake to a dike at Lobith where the Rhine crosses the border, Atlas Greaves travels a country that had to manufacture its own floor, and could only do it by agreeing with the neighbours.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet