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Ben Coates, author of Why the Dutch are Different, cycles the Rhine river from mouth to source, discovering the mark it makes on Europe.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

The Rhine is one of the world´s greatest rivers. Once forming the outer frontier of the Roman Empire, it flows 800 miles from the social democratic playground of the Netherlands, through the industrial and political powerhouses of Germany and France, to the wealthy mountain fortresses of Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

For five years, Ben Coates lived alongside a major channel of the river in Rotterdam, crossing it daily, swimming and sailing in its tributaries. In The Rhine, he sets out by bicycle from the Netherlands where it enters the North Sea, following it through Germany, France and Liechtenstein, to its source in the icy Alps. He explores the impact that the Rhine has had on European culture and history and finds out how influences have flowed along and across the river, shaping the people who live alongside it.

Blending travelogue and offbeat history, The Rhine tells the fascinating story of how a great river helped shape a continent.

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Among the finest multi-destination books is The Rhine . . . Coates´s itchy feet paddle him steadily (after a disaster in a rowing boat) on two wheels from Holland (sleeping in dunes), past Utrecht to the German border (Arnhem redolent of war in A Bridge Too Far) to sleepier Bonn. History shimmers across his hinterland, contested in two world wars, and his curiosity - Coates´s great strength - unearths the ways in which the river shaped the destinies of those who made its ever changing banks their home. Scotsman - Books of the Year

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Coates, Ben
Ben Coates was born in Britain in 1982. After completing a master´s degree in economics, he worked as a political adviser, corporate speechwriter, lobbyist and aid worker in Britain, the Netherlands and in Africa. He is the author of the bestselling Why the Dutch are Different, and has reported for the BBC, Independent, Scotsman and Irish Times. He lives with his Dutch wife in a cottage in the countryside near Gouda.

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