The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

by Russell Shorto

Book Overview

In a riveting, groundbreaking narrative, Russell Shorto tells the story of New Netherland, the Dutch colony which pre-dated the Pilgrims and established ideals of tolerance and individual rights that shaped American history.

Astonishing . . . A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past. --The New York Times

When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400078679
• ISBN13: 9781400078677
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD

THIS INCREDIBLE BOOK IS SO VERY WELL-WRITTEN AND BRINGS SOME NEWLY DISCOVERED HISTORY TO THE NEW YORK AREA. IT IS OUTSTANDING!

Fun, informative, provocative, well written

I have lived in Manhattan for more than 30 years. But until I read this book, I assumed that the character of New York-commercial, contentious, tolerant, and multi-ethnic-was the product of European mass migrations starting, I suppose, with the Irish in the mid-nineteenth century. But, Shorto argues persuasively that this personality took hold much earlier. In fact, he shows how New York's character descends directly from the tolerant and litigious culture of the Dutch, a mighty commercial power in early 1600's, who founded a trading post and village on Manhattan in 1623. I, for one, am convinced. I also enjoyed this book for its resurrection of Peter Stuyvesant, who, to most New Yorkers, is simply the Dutch governor with a peg leg who retired to what is now the Lower East Side. Thankfully, Shorto fills out this picture and shows Stuyvesant as an autocrat who opposed democratic reforms. These bubbled up from the colony's earliest settlers, who believed such reforms might prevent the misrule that, in one case, lead to a bloody war with indigenous Americans. A good read and highly recommended.

Richly Detailed, Deeply Researched and Engagingly Written

The jacket copy for this fascinating book nowhere describes author Russell Shorto as a professional historian. True, he has written two other books on subjects dealing with the past (the historical Jesus and the relationship of psychiatry to religion), but his blurb writers conspicuously avoid the "H" word.Just as well. He writes sprightly, almost novelistic prose --- and he is indeed a man with a mission: He wants to destroy the common conceptions (misconceptions, he calls them) that English influence was the only force that brought New York City into being and that the nearly 40-year existence of the New Netherland colony was merely an unimportant preliminary throat-clearing before the "real story" began with the English takeover in 1664. He goes about this worthy task with missionary zeal and literary zest.His main historical source is a huge mass of documents from the New Netherland period now being translated in an obscure office in the New York State Library by historian and linguistic scholar Charles Gehring, to whom he give full credit. But he has also unearthed all sorts of fascinating documents, both historical gems and delightful trivia, in England, in the Netherlands, all over the USA and in various odd venues on the European continent.The names that every school kid knows from that era -- Peter Minuit and Peter Stuyvesant -- are duly present; Stuyvesant, of course is a major player in the drama. But to them Shorto has added at least two others -- Adriaen Van der Donck, a young Dutch lawyer who fought long and hard to moderate Stuyvesant's rigidity and intolerance in favor of a more liberal philosophy of government, and Willem Klieft, a bullheaded bureaucrat whose foolish pugnacity nearly ruined the whole enterprise. All four of these men, and a fascinating cast of lesser players, are drawn in the round with novelistic verve. If you think "history" is a synonym for "dull," this book will change your mind. There are occasional patches of needlessly purple prose and hyperbole, but they are easily negotiated.Shorto places the founding of the colony firmly in the historical context of the military and mercantile rivalries among England, Holland and Spain. New York's "father city" was not London but Amsterdam, he argues, and his evidence is convincing. (The vast colony was New Netherland; the island city was New Amsterdam). It is more than a matter of surviving Dutch street names and family names in the region; it involves a basic philosophy of religious and racial toleration, a system of representative government and a spirit of inquiry and adventure that survive in the city today.The original New Netherland colony, founded in 1625, took in everything from present-day Delaware to Connecticut. Manhattan Island was the nerve center because of its stretegic position on a fine harbor and a broad river that led north into the interior of the unexplored continent. The true hero of Shorto's tale is Van der Donck, a man now so utterly forgotten t

A splendid and gripping book by a masterful writer

Over the past few years, I've begun reading histories of Manhattan and this particular book is among the very best. It illuminates the hitherto shadowy world of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, and persuasively, vividly demonstrates the cultural debt we owe those early settlers. Perhaps most importantly, Russell Shorto infuses his story with suspense, humor, pathos and brilliant characterization. WOW! What a terrific writer!