Before Amsterdam, another North Sea city was the hub of the known world.

Antwerp writes today's guest, rapidly became a world city, a centre of stories published

across Europe, a sensation like 19th century Paris or 20th century New York.

One of the first cities where anything could happen or at least be believed.

Other cities showed the power of kings or dukes or empires but Antwerp showed only

itself a place of trade where people wanted needed to be or couldn't afford not to be.

It was famous on its own terms.

New trade routes into the city brought pepper and diamonds from India, silver from America

and gold from Africa, the tracked by cart and river to the Ottoman Empire in the east.

Antwerp made possible escape routes to Istanbul for Jews facing the Inquisition and Portugal,

including for the woman running the largest merchant banking house in Europe.

And in just a few generations, the city had featured in Thomas Moore's Utopia, total

rasmus about money, protected William Tindal and smuggled out copies of his bible in

English as well as burning them.

The story of the glory days of the city of Antwerp is our focus today.

My guess is Michael Pie, the author of Antwerp, The Glory Years, for which he did a phenomenal

amount of research reconstructing the city from archives in Venice through to London.

Michael Pie's 12 previous books have been translated into 15 languages, three have been

New York times notable books of the year, two were British bestsellers, one became a Hollywood

movie.

Michael won various prizes in modern history at Oxford and went on to become a journalist,

broadcaster and columnist in London and New York.

...