Taking Manhattan
The extraordinary events that created New York and shaped America
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- 18,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'An informative and thought-provoking history' The Telegraph
'A story rich in intrigue, diplomacy and personalities' New Statesman
'Offering new perspectives and ideas' Guardian
'Here is the whirligig of history, which Shorto captures vividly in this well-researched, well-written, sprightly book' Literary Review
A New Zealand Listener 100 Best Books of 2025
In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their arch-rivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he began parleying with Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch leader on Manhattan.
Bristling with vibrant characters, Taking Manhattan reveals the founding of New York to be an invention: the result not of a violent English takeover, but of clever negotiations that led to the fusing of the multiethnic, capitalistic society the Dutch had pioneered to the power of the rising English empire. But the birth of what might be termed the first modern city is also a story of the brutal dispossession of Native Americans and of the roots of American slavery.
Based on newly translated sources, Taking Manhattan shows how the paradox of New York's origins — boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement — reflect America's promise and failure to this day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 1664 deal that transferred power from the Dutch to the English in what is now New York City was an inventive act that would be foundational to the metropolis to come, according to historian Shorto's revelatory sequel to The Island at the Center of the World. When Richard Nicolls, the Englishman tasked with capturing New Amsterdam, came up against Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of the Dutch enclave, the two men astonishingly disobeyed orders from their respective empires to fight and instead negotiated peacefully. Long considered merely a sign of Dutch decline, Shorto sees more to the story of the handover: the contrarian Nicolls and the abrasive Stuyvesant were not only the right men at the right time—both constitutionally suited to ignore authority—but also a kind of new man brought into being by the very empires that had molded them. Agents of imperial capitalism, they were more interested in business than war: the deal preserved and expanded the unique system of free enterprise that had been brewing on the tiny island, with unprecedented freedom of religion and property guaranteed by Nicolls for residents of the already famously business-friendly and pluralistic city. (The earlier Dutch theft of Manhattan from the Wampanoag, Shorto suggests, also presaged another uniquely American form of dealmaking—the scam.) Shorto's storytelling is wry and accomplished, transforming a campaign of letter-writing and procedural legerdemain into a brisk and amusing saga. Readers will be wowed.
