Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography--the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay--and the democratic philosophy that this enduring...

Chronicles world history through 2002 in side-by-side geographical time lines covering political and military events, important figures, and milestones in areas such as the arts, science and technology, philosophy and religion, and exploration and discovery, and includes sidebars throughout the text, five hundred photos and illustrations, and an encyclopedic subject index.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains more than 200 primary source documents central to world history.