The Island at the Center of the World

Russell Shorto's The Island at the Center of the World is a chronicle of the early years of Manhattan, when it was known as New Amsterdam and was a relatively short-lived Dutch colony. According to Shorto, this period in New York history has not only been given short shift by historians, but also is crucial to understanding the development and character of New York City and the United States. Shorto believes that most students of United States history have assumed that New York City's history only really got underway when the English took over and instilled some order.

This is due in part to the disdain that the British held for the Dutch, and to the fact that the subsequent histories of the United States were told from their biased perspective. However, Shorto demonstrates that New Amsterdam was a viable society of its own, and that its unique character among the early American colonies had a remarkable impact on the future United States. For Shorto, as the first "multi-ethnic, upwardly mobile society on America's shores ... Manhattan is where America began."

Shorto is not a professional historian, but rather a professional writer, and he is writing for a popular audience. As a result his work flows in a novelistic manner, with vivid descriptions, imaginative poetic license, interesting asides, informal language and even bawdy humor used to liven things up. His acknowledged inspiration is the late Barbara Tuchman, whose meticulously researched books set a standard for bridging the gap between dense scholarship and popular appeal. Indeed, she managed to make a bestseller out of a 800+ page book about the 14th century, among other subjects, and Shorto emulates her with a knack for a compelling narrative drawn from myriad primary sources.

In this case, the primary sources are comprised of diaries, court documents, letters and municipal records found all over the world, principally in New York and the Netherlands, which are only recently being given the scholarly attention that they deserve. Shorto describes a sort of renaissance in colonial studies, spurned by a new interest in the Dutch period, and he is admittedly standing on the shoulders of giants, i.e., the professional historians who have let this popular writer have a look at their on-going research. At the center of this scholarship is a 12,000-page trove of documents relating to New Amsterdam, now residing in the New York State Library in Albany after narrowly escaping several brushes with destruction.

Written in dense 17th century Dutch, they are still in the midst of being translated by Dr. Charles Gehring, a specialist in that narrow field. The story of the documents' survival and Dr. Gehring's research is itself very entertaining, and is told breathlessly by Shorto as if he can't quite believe his good fortune at being privy to the them. That Dr. Gehring's work figures so prominently throughout the book is testament both to his importance to the project, and Shorto's debt to him.

Shorto traces New Amsterdam's character, naturally, to Amsterdam and Dutch society. He points out that Dutch society was the most tolerant in Europe at the time, a place where dissidents and controversial thinkers could come to escape persecution. The book is filled with examples of this enlightened atmosphere, from philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza to the interesting fact that one-half of all books in Europe were published in the Netherlands. Fresh from the highly resented imperial rule of the Spanish, the Dutch were particularly sensitive to liberal notions of free-speech and self-determination. Furthermore, Shorto suggests that because New Amsterdam was a company town, and never intended to be a settlement colony, attitudes toward religious and national differences were put aside to a remarkable degree. Business is business, after all, and distractions were unwelcome in this market society.

New Amsterdam was not entirely a reflection of Dutch society, however. Indeed, Shorto points out that because Amsterdam was a pleasant place even for the poor, only the very lowest order of society could be convinced to populate the far-away outpost of New Amsterdam, and thus the city became populated with a particularly rough-and-tumble crowd. Through court records he brings to life some of these figures, and this time spent with various average residents is one of the more delightful aspects of the book. He recounts a lively atmosphere full of drunkenness, casual violence, and casual sex, all of which help to make the book entertaining to a popular audience. He even mixes in a fair amount of humor, such as when he writes of a record concerning a woman who, as her husband sleeps off a drunken stupor, "'dishonorably manipulated the male member' of a certain Irishman while two other men looked on." Shorto can't help himself, and remarks, "Excessive rigidity (of the moral kind) was not the sin of New Amsterdam's residents."

As interesting as it is to read about these forgotten average people, the backbone of the book rests with two more important figures. One is Pieter Stuyvesant, an early governor of the colony, who is well known to modern New York residents due to the fact that streets, squares and apartment complexes have been named for him. His statue can be seen in Stuyvesant Square, and his tombstone is built into the side of St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery church in the East Village. Running in front of that church is Stuyvesant St., still running today in true East-West (at odds with the surrounding grid) as it did in Stuyvesant's time. The other figure is Adriaen van der Donck, an attorney trained in Europe who, for mysterious reasons, turned his back on a prosperous and comfortable life in Holland and took a position in New Netherland.

For Shorto, van der Donck is the true "hero of the story" who has been unjustifiably forgotten by American history; Shorto makes clear that he aims to rectify this lack of recognition.
Both characters are vividly drawn. Stuyvesant is a no-nonsense, autocratic governor hardened by the loss of a leg to a Spanish round in the Caribbean. The pages detailing 17th century amputation techniques, and Stuyvesant's wound festering for nine years in a tropical climate, are quite harrowing, and one is left with no doubt as to why his personality may have developed as it did.

Shorto's narrative structure sets van der Donck in opposition to Stuyvesant; van der Donck is a believer in liberal notions of tolerance, human rights, free speech and representative government who found himself at odds with Stuyvesant's world of absolute rule. Their struggle comprises the central conflict of the book, and Shorto credits van der Donck's (sort of) victory as setting the stage for modern America's recognition of liberal values.

In pursuit of this premise, despite a little bit of hyperbole that pops up in his zeal to "close the deal", Shorto has written a very engaging book with a convincing argument. The modern reader has been deliberately and skillfully engaged by utilizing anachronistic notions like "geopolitical landscape" and even "bar scene." It works: the reader is taken back and asked to imagine New Amsterdam via Shorto's vibrant descriptive ability, and in the process comes to appreciate the binds that tie a long-past society to our own.