Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America

Sydney M. WilliamsBurrowing into BooksTaking Manhattan, Russell ShortoAugust 2, 2025“New York came into being not organically, but through a purposeful act,which involved the stitching together of two cultures and traditions into something new.” Russell Shorto (1959-) Taking Manhattan, 2025Empires come and go. In 1600 the Spanish and Ottoman Empires were Europe’s strongest. But early in the 17th Century the Dutch Empire, as a maritime and economic force, achieved its “Golden Age.” And Britain was on the cusp of becoming the world’s largest empire.In 1624, Cornelis Jacobsz May led the first settlers to what would become New Amsterdam. Twenty-three years later, in 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed Director-General of New Netherland, a sizable chunk of coastal North America, with New Amsterdam as its principal city. In mid 17th Century, New Amsterdam had a population of about 1,000. Despite its small size, its location – near the mouth of the Hudson River and with both inner and outer harbors providing protection – made it a central trading post: furs from the interior, tobacco from Maryland, and slaves from Africa. In 1664, three British warships, captained by Richard Nicolls, sailed into New Amsterdam’s outer harbor. A few months later, without a shot being fired, a transfer-of-power document was signed. What made this remarkable was that between 1652 and 1674 England and the Netherlands were involved in the Anglo-Dutch Wars, consisting largely of naval battles fought in the English Channel, with both sides vying for control of colonial possessions and trade routes. We learn this history through Russell Shorto’s captivating book, Taking Manhattan.As well as explaining the founding of Manhattan and placing that founding in the context of forces then at work in Europe and in North America, this is a story of two men: Richard Nicolls and Peter Stuyvesant. Though not of the nobility, Nicolls was well-connected. “From the cradle (born in 1625), he was intimately connected to the Stuarts.” That was especially true of his relationship to the future James II. During Cromwell’s Protectorate (1653-1658), Richard Nicolls was a confirmed Royalist.While Peter Stuyvesant (born about 1612) was duty-bound to serve both the Dutch Republic and the Dutch West India Company, he felt a loyalty to the people of New Netherlands and, especially those on the island of Manhattan. Mr. Shorto writes: “Here in the New World, where people were just a bit freer and less encumbered by tradition than in the homeland, that combination of forces had fashioned a different kind of system and settlement. This wasn’t the Dutch Republic. It was unlike Winthrop’s Connecticut. It was a far cry from Boston or Plymouth...If this paradoxical kind of city, with its mishmash of peoples, faiths, and languages and its remarkably efficient approach to business could somehow be preserved...might that be a kind of victory?”In Taking Manhattan, we learn that what mattered most to New Amsterdam’s inhabitants was that they be allowed to keep their property and businesses. And that is what Nicolls wanted as well. Mr. Shorto writes: “He wanted not only the territory but the society they had developed there. He wanted the secret sauce, and they knew the recipe.” Today, New York City, with immigrants from all over the world, is the most assimilated city in the world and the one with the largest economy. Its origins make for fascinating history.

The bulk of this book is well-written narrative history, but not meeting the quality of Shorto’s much better book Island at the Center of the World. To his credit, Shorto did us a favor by recounting a pivotal moment in American history, made possible by the recent translation of Dutch and English documents.The book makes the bizarre assertion that the religious extremism of the Puritans is reflected in the election of Donald Trump. The equivocation between the Puritans and Trump is done flippantly, with the purpose of (what other than?) virtue signaling. It comes across as the kind of simplistic thinking whereby everything is either progressive liberal tolerance (the New Amsterdammers) or Donald Trump (the Puritans). It would be something else if the assertion were buttressed with arguments or, better, if Shorto wrote a separate manuscript on the matter, so we could better assess his position in context. All he really says in this regard is that one “can read American history” that way. His political remarks alienate those who disagree with Shorto politically and reaffirm those already on his side. These are not the qualities of a respectable work of history.Separately, when referring to race, Shorto capitalizes “Black” but lowercases “white”, which is an activist syntactic convention popularized during the protests of summer 2020. To better understand this convention that Shorto uses, I recommend you to read the Associated Press’s 2020 article that popularized the convention in which they explicitly state that while black people have a shared cultural history, white people have no such shared history. Shorto’s adoption of the convention reduces his credibility and once again shows his willingness to lace historical writing with his personal political stance.

Fascinating read. Balanced examination of events that my high school history textbook covered with a sentence that read something like, "In the 1660s, the English took New Amsterdam and renamed it New York."

As a lover of anything History this book was, in my opinion well researched and well written. Just when I thought I knew everything about the early days of the Unites States this book showed me that I am not quite there. There are very interesting facts that I am sure many people including myself did not know but was so excited that I had learned something new. For me, the most enlightening base of this book that many people including myself probably dont think much about is the affect on the indigenous people whose land this was before it was taken from them. We all see the United States as it is today but dont take the time to reflect on the cost and toll it took on the people whose land this was before it all began.

Provides a good understanding of the impact of the Dutch/Amsterdam culture on New York in the 1600's which gave us capitalism, voting, and an early version of the bill of rights - the foundation for American exceptionalism.