The Island at the Center of the World
‘Narratively irresistible, intellectually provocative, historically invaluable’ Simon Callow, Guardian
‘Astonishing … a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past’ New York Times
‘A landmark work … Shorto paints the emotions and attitudes of his characters with a sure hand, and bestows on each a believable, living presence’ The Times
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 colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed. Drawing on the archives of the New Netherland Project, Russell Shorto has created a gripping narrative that transforms our understanding of early America.
‘Astonishing … a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past’ New York Times
‘A landmark work … Shorto paints the emotions and attitudes of his characters with a sure hand, and bestows on each a believable, living presence’ The Times
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 colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed. Drawing on the archives of the New Netherland Project, Russell Shorto has created a gripping narrative that transforms our understanding of early America.
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Reviews
Astonishing... A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past
The Island at the Center of the World must always be near the top of the list of great books about New York
A spry, informative history. . . . Shorto supplies lucid, comprehensive contexts in which to see the colony's promise and turmoil. . . . Delivers the goods with clarity, color and zest
Shorto brings this . . . deeply influential chapter in the city's history to vivid, breathtaking life [with] a talent for enlivening meticulous research and painting on a broad canvas. . . . In elegant, erudite prose, he manages to capture the lives of disparate historical characters, from kings to prostitutes
Narratively irresistible, intellectually provocative, historically invaluable
Shorto's prose is deliciously rich and witty, and the story he tells-drawing heavily on sources that have only recently come to light-brings one surprise after another. His rediscovery of Adriaen van der Donck, Peter Stuyvesant's nemesis, is fascinating
A landmark work ... Shorto paints the emotions and attitudes of his characters with a sure hand, and bestows on each a believable, living presence
Shorto's book makes a convincing case that the Dutch did not merely influence the relatively open, tolerant and multicultural society that became the United States; they made the first and most significant contribution
Fascinating. . . . A richly nuanced portrait set against events on the world stage
A triumph of scholarship and a rollicking narrative . . . an exciting drama about the roots of America's freedoms
Remarkable. . . . Compulsively interesting . . . . Shorto argues that during the brief decades of its Dutch colonial existence Manhattan had already found, once and for all, its tumultuously eclectic soul
As Russell Shorto demonstrates in this mesmerizing volume, the story we don't know is even more fascinating than the one we do. . . . Historians must now seriously rethink what they previously understood about New York's origins
Wonderful. . . . This is one of those rare books in the picked-over field of colonial history, a whole new picture, a thrown-open window. . . . With his full-blooded resurrection of an unfamiliar American patriot, Russell Shorto has made a real contribution
An absorbing, sensual, sometimes bawdy narrative featuring whores, pirates, explorers and scholars. With clarity and panache, Shorto briskly conveys the complex history of the age of exploration