Emigrants left Germany from Hamburg. The Beatles honed their skills there. Today, it’s home to 40 theaters, 60 museums, 160 art galleries and 259 libraries. It’s the country’s second-largest city, and historian Matthew Jefferies describes its past and present in “Hamburg: A Cultural History” (2011, Interlink, 256 pp., $15). Part guidebook, part history, the book dispels the image of Hamburg as just a “mercantile” city and celebrates its cosmopolitan nature.