"Published in conjunction with the exhibition Dutch New York: the roots of Hudson Valley culture, organized by the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, June 13, 2009 through January 10, 2010"--T.p. verso.

"The Dutch spirit of diversity, tolerance, and entrepreneurship still echoes across our city streets today. This guide will highlight the history of the early settlements of these new world pioneers as well as the incredible impact they had, and still have, on the world's greatest city." — Michael R. Bloomberg, former Mayor, City of New York This comprehensive guide to touring important sites of Dutch history serves as an engrossing cultural and historical reference. A variety of internationally renowned scholars explore Dutch art in the Metropolitan Museum, Dutch cooking, Dutch architecture, Dutch immigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, English words of Dutch origin, Dutch furniture and antiques, and much more. Color photographs and maps throughout. "An expansive guidebook inspired by the Henry Hudson quadricentennial and accompanied by informative essays." — The New York Times

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, 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: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Russell Shorto draws on this remarkable archive in The Island at the Center of the World, which has been hailed by The New York Times as “a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past.” The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

Geschiedenis in woord en beeld van Nieuw-Amsterdam, het latere New York, vanaf de ontdekking van Manhattan door Henry Hudson in 1609 tot aan de overgave van de Nederlandse kolonie aan de Engelsen in 1664.

Commemorating the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage and the lasting legacy of Dutch culture in New York, this book explores the life and times of a fascinating woman, her family, and her things. Margrieta was born in the Netherlands but lived at the extremes of the Dutch colonial world, in Malacca on the Malay Peninsula and in Flatbush, Brooklyn. When she came to New York in 1686 with her husband and set up a shop, she brought an astonishing array of Eastern goods, many of which were documented in an inventory made after her death in 1695. Extensive archival research has enabled a collaborative team to reconstruct her story and establish the depth of her connection to Dutch trading establishments in Asia. This is a groundbreaking contribution to the histories of New York City, the Dutch overseas empire, women, and material culture. Exhibition Schedule: Bard Graduate Center, New York, 9/17/09 - 1/3/10)

This comprehensive guide to touring important sites of Dutch history also serves as an engrossing cultural and historical reference. Art and architecture, cooking, furniture and antiques, much more. Color photographs and maps.

An endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed Island at the Center of the World Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography-the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay and the democratic philosophy that this enduring struggle fostered. Amsterdam is the font of liberalism, in both its senses. Tolerance for free thinking and free love make it a place where, in the words of one of its mayors, "craziness is a value." But the city also fostered the deeper meaning of liberalism, one that profoundly influenced America: political and economic freedom. Amsterdam was home not only to religious dissidents and radical thinkers but to the world's first great global corporation. In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a sixteenth-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch-and world-history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam.