The Island at the Center of the World

It's been a bit since I've finished this. let's see what I can remember. "The Dutch actually founded New York. Did you know it was originally called New Amsterdam." 

Not using exclamation points. Trying to keep my dignity. 

Take two, the write-up begins in earnest. 

Everyone knows that New York was originally New Amsterdam. But the premise of this well-researched book by Russell Shorto is that New York was "New York" way before it was English or certainly, American - briefly the capitol, actually and the seat of government when General Washington originally took office. 

Unlike the colonies founded by by the Puritans, New Amsterdam was always a diverse, unruly place of barter and quick deals, whores and bankers. And this is because it was founded by the Dutch who at this time were Europes only Republic and as an outpost of the Dutch West India company, New Amsterdam brought all of that along with it. 

I liked Russell Shorto's writing. I would definitely read something else by him. It's shocking that his book came out in 2004 - seems like a lifetime ago ... and for my kids and I, it kinda was. 

Anyway, the book is based on a lot of new research that was happening because of the work of Charles Gehring, the director of the New Netherland Project, devoted 30 years to translating the manuscript of Duth records of the New Netherland colony - that were all hard to read because they were in Middle Dutch or something like that. 

The dramatic tension of the book comes from the rivalry of Peter Stuyvesant, who we have all heard of, and Adriaen Van der Donck, who none of us have heard of. Peter Stuyvesant was the authoritative Governor of the New Netherland Colony. Adriaen Van der Donck was a young Junker (landed gentleman) who had gone to school at Leiden, and studied law. He was an advocate of the people and of making New Netherland a free colony with the citizens enjoying full rights of the Dutch people back home, and not just an trading outpost for the Dutch West India company. He even went back to Holland to plead his case before the council at Den Hague. Things were looking good, too, but then William II, Stadtholder, a sort of honorific King, decided he'd had enough republicanism for awhile and set 10,000 troops to take over Amsterdam and Van der Donck's case was pushed aside. 

Van der Donck also wrote an account of the plants and people of the new world, which would have probably been revered as a classic if written in English; instead it has been sort of buried under the silt of time. 

Here's the wiki page if you want to know more. Giving it a once over, I think it's mostly taken from Shorto's book - so good for him. 

Russell Shorto does a great job of drawing out the characters - I imagine from pretty slim pickings. Gets a little dry in the middle, but closes strong.