ISLAND AT THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD
by SHORTO, RUSSELL
List Price: HK$ 128.00
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ISBN
9780552999823
Subject
HISTORY (NON-ASIAN)
Publisher
BLACK SWAN
Publication
2005
Edition
Paperback
Version
Original
Description
In the late 1960s, an archivist made an astounding discovery: 12,000 pages of centuries-old correspondence, court cases etc from a forgotten society: the Dutch colony centered on Manhattan. Now, Russell Shorto has made use of this material to construct a sweeping narrative of Manhattan’s founding that gives a fresh perspective on how America began. The book strips Manhattan of its asphalt, bringing us back to a wilderness island—a hunting ground for Indians, populated by wolves and bears—that became a prize in the global power struggle between the English and the Dutch. Shorto shows that America’s founding was not the work of English settlers alone but a result of the clashing of two 17th century powers. While the Puritans of New England were founding a society based on intolerance, on Manhattan the Dutch created a free-trade, upwardly-mobile melting pot that would help shape not only New York, but America.
