.Russell Shorto.s dramatic adventure tale about the settling of Manhattan will transform
the way we look at American history. The Dutch colony, founded just three years after the
Puritans landed in Massachusetts, quickly became the gateway for Germans, Italians, Jews,
Scandinavians, Africans, and others who created the pluralistic mix that would define
a new nation. Shorto.s book recounts the fascinating struggle between Peter Stuyvesant
and the lesser-known but more influential Adriaen van der Donck, whose appreciation for
individual tolerance laid the foundation for our Bill of Rights and helped to create our
national character. It.s also the story of the remarkable age of exploration led by Henry
Hudson and others who spread the culture of the European Renaissance to a distant
wilderness. Based on a wealth of documents that archivist began translating forty years
ago, Shorto has produced both a triumph of scholarship and a rollicking narrative.
The result is an exciting drama about the roots of America.s freedoms.. .Walter Isaacson,
author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

.The Island at the Center of the World ranks among the best books ever written about New
Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement on Manhattan that would become New York City. Shorto.s
prose is deliciously rich and witty, and the story he tells.drawing heavily on sources
that have only recently come to light.brings one surprise after another. His rediscovery
of Adriaen van der Donck, Peter Stuyvesant.s nemesis, is fascinating.. .Edwin G. Burrows,
coauthor of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for
History

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