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

Ha, I would also assume that getting people to read it is unquestionably good in most ways :) But…I also wonder about if, in academia, there's a sense that a cover that's too good might not be serious enough, that it might be seen as sociologists see Malcolm Gladwell books or economists see Freakonomics.

Anyways: I think these sorts of historical stories, where you are looking at a modern-day state of affairs and retracing the steps and powers that brought it into being, are super interesting for a general audience. Elaine Pagels' Revelations and Russell Shorto's Amsterdam are two that come to mind, although that's a very broad grouping.

I bring those up because looking at the cover, it feels very much like "somebody had a PhD thesis and they turned it into a more readable book." I don't know if that's the case with this or not, but it sort of looks like the sort of book you'd find in a university's library, where the professor who works there keeps 1 copy at the library and makes his students buy the remaining stock every year.

I might pick it up if I'm someone with an academic interest in history, but not someone like me who enjoys history as a general interest reader. And based on what little I can tell from the cover, it's a book that could potentially have a broad appeal with the right marketing — it's a topic that ties in with so many things in the headlines.

So, in terms of what to do: I might do some research at the local bookstore on what's hot in book covers at the moment. With a b&w photo + one color, this can be very understated and elegant when done with expensive materials and processes, but as a flat image, it says "academic work." With Elaine Pagels' Revelations, rather than having a block of color over the image, it's just white type over the image. This tends to feel stronger to me. With Shorto's Amsterdam, you have more of a collaged, geometric approach that you would probably want to have a graphic designer do if you were going to take a crack at that. I would also see how the image looks at like 100 and even 50 px across, since this is going to live primarily as an ebook. Again, context.

EDIT: the main thing I didn't express outright was that I think fiddling with the type but leaving the general layout as is will not make a big difference. There needs to be some intrigue, some emotional connection, that makes the reader click on your book amidst the search results for "cold war history" or whatever they typed into amazon. Adjusting the typography is not going to accomplish that.

The author of this article, Russell Shorto, has a special interest in the Netherlands and has written a lot on the subject. I recommend reading his book Amsterdam, A History of the World's Most Liberal City as well. It's a good read, well researched and not so much a history book but actually more of a philosophical essay on the Netherlands' central role in the development of modern liberalism.

Sleeping. Been up since 10am est Thursday.

I read most of this book about Amsterdam on my flight yesterday. You'd probably enjoy it.