I had never thought of it this way before, but it’s an important difference, and it makes New Amsterdam stand out as one of the few examples of true colonization/settlement from the Dutch. Whereas England, France, and Spain were all focused on claiming new land through settlement, the Dutch tended to stick with military outposts that enforced their monopoly on critical trade goods. So they downplayed the Dutch origins of Manhattan and New York, choosing instead to present a narrative of the United States springing forth from thirteen English colonies.įor Shorto, this is all about tracing the development of the colony and highlighting how the Netherlands’ colonial efforts differed so much from other European powers at the time.

Shorto essentially takes the position that history is written by the victors, and the victors being English in this case meant they had no shortage of bad things to say about the Dutch. This is revising historians’ opinions of New Amsterdam.

For the past thirty years, a specialist in that period has been laboriously translating hitherto untranslated documents that help shed light on the character of the colony. Russell Shorto wants to bring to light the extensive new work being done on records from that period. The Island at the Cent er of the World is about the Dutch colony on Manhattan Island-New Amsterdam and its ancillary towns that would eventually be surrendered to the English and metamorphose into New York and New York state. I have the forbearance of a saint, I swear. You have no idea how hard it is for me to spell this title “correctly” (with the American spelling of centre).

The island at the center of the world