This is a struggle and I wish it weren't. I became interested in the history of Netherlands when I visited Leiden where my son and daughter-in-law moved there as ex-pats. We visited several museums in Leiden and Amsterdam, read the notes by all the works of art and got hooked. I was hoping that Schama would add background and fill in the gaps.

To my dismay, Schama's book turned out to be a deluge of detail information. As others have commented here, the author presumes that you have some basic chronological history of how the Netherlands became a country because his effort takes off pretty much after the formative years. He drills down to what others might consider minutia, throws around names of characters and assumes you know in as much detail as he does who they were, what they did and their place in the flow of Dutch history.

The best and worst nature of the book was the detail commentaries about various forms of Dutch art of the 17th Century. He incorporates black and white images focuses with explanations and descriptions of details that are impossible for you to see. Furthermore, his writing is so erudite and uses so many arcane words that you have to read the book with a dictionary by your side.

I'm half way through this huge tome and hope that I don't give up on it before I reach the end.