About this title: This history of early New York City conveys a strong sense of place as it covers the period when the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was a sprawling seaport, full of activity and promise. Russell Shorto offers illuminating portraits of two key players: Peter Stuyvesant, governor, and Adriaen van der Donck, a lawyer and historian whose nearly lost papers formed the research core for this history. Shorto conveys the flavor of the political debates of the time, and demonstrates the ways in which the Dutch colony's legacy of individual freedom was later to influence the founding fathers. A New York ...
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Your search:Books»The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America(35 available copies)
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2005-04-12
ISBN-13:9781400078677ISBN:1400078679
Description: Like New. Paperback in excellent condition with very minor shelf wear. Unmarked text. No ownership markings. No spine creases. _ read more
Description: Very Good. 1400078679 Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light curve to the spine / light reading creases to the covers. read more
Description: Fine. 1400078679 "A masterpiece of storytelling and first rate intellectual history" The Wall Street Journal "As readable as a finely written novel...Social history in the BArbara Tuchman tradition. " San Jose Mercury News. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400078677ISBN:1400078679
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. bright shiny brand new condition, Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 416 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400078677ISBN:1400078679
Description: When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colo... read more
"If you have ever wondered why it is that we learn in American History that the country was founded with Puritan ideals, yet the basics of tolerance and civil liberties are in conflict with the intolerance of the Puritans, then this book is for you!
It is no secret that I am a sucker for well-written history books. I have always felt that my education in the history of my own country, let alone the world, was not good enough. This may not have been the fault of my teachers as I was most likely much more engaged by my science and math classes, but some of the dry texts that we read did not help matters. I am also not fond of the short attention span textbooks that my son is required to use, but I do think that he is getting a broader view of history than I did. To fill in the gaps, I now actively seek out books that both inform and keep my attention. Russell Shorto has succeeded on both levels.
After reading The Island at the Center of the World, I realize that I previously knew very little about New Netherlands. I don't even recall learning that Henry Hudson was working for the Dutch when he "discovered" Manhattan. Those gaps have been filled in grand style. This was a thoroughly enjoyable yet well-researched book. Shorto has a gift for bringing energy and life to what could be dry details. By focussing on the people and their interactions, he breathes life into the dusty pages of long-untranslated records. If he has any failings it is perhaps that he reaches a bit far to personalize those who left little record and there are some repetitions. Still, the flaws are few and are easily overlooked. In terms of style, he doesn't quite reach that of David McCullough, but I will not hold that against him.
This book is well worth the time and answers many questions that I have had about how we managed to value tolerance when our supposed founders epitomized intolerance and bigotry. The answers lie within these covers."
"A thoroughly enjoyable look at a chapter of American history you probably didn't learn about in school. Shorto lays the historical foundations of Manhattan as a multicultural island relatively tolerant of difference in skin color and even religion in the seventeenth century as an outgrowth of the freedoms available in the Netherlands. He also paints lively portraits of forgotten colonial figures (Adrian van der Donck), ones whose names have become entangled in myth (Peter Stuyvesant) and the man whose life's work has become bringing this information into the public domain, Charles Gehring of the NY State Library and archives. He's been translating original documents from 17th c. Dutch (a script that many Dutch today cannot read) for 30 years, and without him this book would not exist."
"Well, any book that makes you choke up a little when Peter Stuyvesant hands over control of New Amsterdam to the British is doing something right. Shorto is a thoughtful and engaging storyteller, and makes you feel as if you are right there walking around the muddy streets of the small Dutch outpost, breathing in the sense of possibility that it and its inhabitants hold.
Shorto does a great job of laying out a number of Dutchmen's sometimes competing visions of the city of New Amsterdam, profiling Kieft's Indian-hating crusades and Stuyvesant's stern but competent rule. But ultimately he finds his inspiration in Adraien Van Der Donck's wondrous love of the new colony, its natural wonders and its complex indigenous populations, and in Van Der Donck's vision of New Netherland as the cradle of representative government.
Overall, this book is impeccably executed. My one critique is that I think Shorto's larger thesis - that a "tolerant" Dutch New Amsterdam planted the seeds of tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism that mark modern New York - ultimately feels forced and falls flat. That doesn't detract from his ability to make a tiny yet boisterous outpost on the edge of an empire come alive for those of us who continue to love it four hundred years later."
"Henry Hudson, in the employ of Dutch sponsors and searching for a route to China and India, explored a river and a wonderful harbor near a place that the Delawares called Manna-hata. He won the Dutch a toehold on the Atlantic seaboard of North America nestled between the French to the north and the English to the south. Read how New Amsterdam then became the freewheeling and messy "Big Apple" of its day. All the odd place names (Harlem, Bronx, Flushing, Greenwich, Hackensack, Schuylkill and Yonkers to mention a few) that we associate with New York will suddenly make sense."
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