Describes life in bustling 17th-century New Amsterdam and a woman whose seemingly "crazy" behavior raises an interesting question in light of New York's subsequent development.

The Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was founded by the director-general of the colony of New Netherland, Peter Minuit, who purchased it from local Indians in 1626. The colony was captured by the British in 1664 and subsequently renamed New York. From Native American to Dutch to British and finally to international melting pot, New Amsterdam chronicles the origins of the settlement destined to become one of the leading cities in the world. Students will learn in this book about the key events and prominent figures that created New Amsterdam.

Discusses the origins of New York, once the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, with a focus on the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant.

A love story wrapped around a murder mystery, set in seventeenth-century Manhattan In 1663 in the hardscrabble colony of New Amsterdam—today’s lower Manhattan—orphan children are going missing and residents suspect a serial killer. The list of possible culprits is long and strange. Among those looking into the mystery are a shrewd young Dutch woman, Blandine van Couvering, and a dashing Englishman, Edward Drummond, whose newfound romance is threatened by horrible accusations. In this spellbinding work of historical fiction, Jean Zimmerman relates the harsh realities of life in early Manhattan, re-creating the sights, smells, and textures of the rough settlement surrounded by wilderness and subject to political turmoil. Compulsively readable and filled with New York history, The Orphanmaster will delight fans of Caleb Carr, Hilary Mantel, and Geraldine Brooks.

In the spirit of Oliver Sacks and the inspiration for the NBC drama New Amsterdam, this intensely involving memoir from a Medical Director of Bellevue Hospital looks poignantly at patients' lives and highlights the complex mind-body connection. Using the plights of twelve very different patients--from dignitaries at the nearby UN, to supermax prisoners at Riker's Island, to illegal immigrants, and Wall Street tycoons--Dr. Eric Manheimer "offers far more than remarkable medical dramas: he blends each patient's personal experiences with their social implications" (Publishers Weekly). Manheimer is not only the medical director of the country's oldest public hospital, but he is also a patient. As the book unfolds, the narrator is diagnosed with cancer, and he is forced to wrestle with the end of his own life even as he struggles to save the lives of others.