The subject of transnational lives has only recently gained importance in historical research. With its transnational approach to “mobility and biography,” this volume brings together research on aspects of mobility and biography across different times and spaces to open up new interdisciplinary perspectives. Networks, movements and the capacity to become socially or spatially mobile in and across Europe are not only analysed as structural factors, but rather seen as connected to concrete practices of mobility among different groups in the spheres of business, politics and the arts: from Jewish merchants via legal and financial advisors all the way to musicians.

The essays in this book offer a rich sampling of current scholarship on New Netherland and Dutch colonization in North America. The Introduction explains why the Dutch moment in American history has been overlooked or trivialized and calls attention to signs of the emergence of a new narrative of American beginnings that gives due weight to the imprint of Dutch settlement in America. The essays are organized around six major themes: New Netherland and Historical Memory, New Netherland in the Atlantic World, The Political Economy of New Netherland, New Netherland’s Directors: A New Look, Family Research as a key to New Netherland’s History, and Writing the History of New Netherland in the Twenty-first Century. This volume holds great interest for historians of early America and of Dutch colonization. Contributors include: Willem Frijhoff, Charles Th. Gehring, Joyce D. Goodfriend, Firth Haring Fabend, Jaap Jacobs, Wim Klooster, Harry Macy, Jr., Dennis J. Maika, Simon Middleton, Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, Annette Stott, David William Voorhees, and Richard Waldron.