Born in Vlaardingen in 1946, Geert Mak grew up in Hardegarijp, Friesland. After receiving his gymnasium diploma in Leeuwarden, he left for Amsterdam where he studied constitutional law and sociology of law against the backdrop of the tumultuous sixties.

Upon graduation in 1972, he became a lecturer inconstitutional and immigration law at the University of Utrecht. From 1975 he worked for the Groene Amsterdammer and NRC Handelsblad—overarching themes in his newspaper career have centered on minorities, youth movements, big city politics and problems, and more recently the troubled immigration and integration issues of certain groups among the Muslim population of the Netherlands.

For the television broadcasting company VPRO Mak did a series of travelogues and documentaries which would later inspire his books. In the 1990s Mak became a full-time author and in 1996 he had his breakthrough with his non-fiction book, Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd. In an accessible and engaging prose style that would become his trademark, Mak tells the story of Jorwerd, a Frisian rural village during the “silent revolution between 1945 and 1995.”

An equally popular book with an identical sense of nostalgia for a world that has vanished was Mak’s De eeuw van mijn vader (1999): with remarkable flair, the author manages to connect the big events of the twentieth century with the events in his own family life. Both books were celebrated by both readers and critics. Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd received the Henriëtte Roland Holst Prize and De eeuw van mijn vader got Trouw’s Publieksprijs.

In 1999 Mak traveled all over Europe and penned travelogues for NRC Handelsblad. This would trigger yet another big book, both in size and in the public’s appreciation. In Europa (2004), which is now being translated into English, is a unique narrative, combining travel impressions with key events and players in Europe’s history. Detailed, literary and incisive, In Europa is a masterful journey through Europe’s turbulent twentieth century. The book put Geert Mak on the map as the heir of Lou de Jong, Holland’s most famous (and national) historian.

Between 2000 and 2003 Mak taught at the University of Amsterdam where he was honored with the Wibaut Endowed Chair. His lectures dealt with the problems of the big city, and in particular those of Amsterdam, a city he not only has a special relationship with but which also became the topic of his 1992 De engel van Amsterdam which was translated and published in English by Harvard University Press in 2000.

As a journalist and thinker who has never been on the sidelines when it came to politics, Geert Mak could not remain silent in the immigration and integration debates in the aftermath of the assassinations of right-wing politican Pim Fortuyn and the controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh. In two political pamphlets, Gedoemd tot kwestbaarheid (2005) and Nagekomen flessenpost (2005), Mak is not afraid to break a lance for Holland’s compromised tolerance, while fighting the politics of fear, practiced, in his view, by the Dutch political and ruling party, the VVD.

According to Mak, the politics of fear has caused increased polarization and racism between Muslim immigrants and the Dutch, and he believes that after all the confusion and rage that followed the Fortuyn and van Gogh murders, the Dutch should not respond with isolation and a closing down of their free and open society. Or as Mak writes in a recent article of NRC Handelsblad: “The time has come to face reality and to stand up for our liberties and constitutional rights. It’s time to dust off the citizens’ courage of old. But this also means, we need to, rather soberly and concretely, roll up our sleeves to teach and learn real tolerance and its inherent conflicts. We need to reassess our national heritage and figure out which (national) qualities we need to preserve and hand these down, whatever the price […]. There is only one way out and that is hope [not fear]. We have no alternative.”

The Geert Mak Tour was spearheaded by NAF-San Francisco Committee Members Rafal Klopotowski and Inez Hollander. The NAF-San Francisco Cultural and Business Exchange was founded in 2006 and hopes to cater to San Francisco Bay Area Dutch-American families, business people and senior citizens. After a successful First Annual Family Picnic this summer in Golden Gate Park, the committee will host Geert Mak on the Berkeley Campus (in collaboration with Dutch Studies and the Graduate Theological Union) and at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. On November 16h, Dutch-American Heritage Day, NAF San Francisco will hold a Dutch story hour in a number of the Bay Area’s public libraries to create more awareness for Dutch as a language, literature and a culture. For more information see www.thenafsanfrancisco.com

Geert Mak Schedule
October 30th: Washington DC
November 1st: New York City
November 2nd: Boston
November 4th: Grand Rapids
November 7th: Los Angeles
November 14th: Berkeley
November 20th: San Francisco