Using these tools, this little European nation rapidly developed a global trading empire. At the same time the Dutch were founding a colony based on Manhattan Island, they were inventing what we now call capitalism. You might say that New York was New York even before it was New York.
Among other astounding facts about it was this: its residents spoke a total of 18 different languages – at a time when the population was only about 500. That little city, of only 16 streets, was the key to New York’s future. It covered parts of five future states, with its capital of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. But while the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia were indeed founded by the English, right in the middle of those was the Dutch colony of New Netherland. We think of America as a melting pot, but for most of our history Americans were proud of their “pure” English roots.
Among the insights you’ll discover:ĭiversity. We’ll dive into history, and then pull back to the present to connect that history to today. Now I’d like to invite you to join me as I use it as the basis for a live, one-time class in which I’ll share with you Five Things I’ve Learned About How Manhattan Became the Island at the Center of the World. It has been optioned for a TV series and has been translated into eight languages. My New York Times bestselling book about Dutch Manhattan, The Island at the Center of the World, won the New York City Book Prize and got me a Dutch knighthood. Between 1609, when Henry Hudson charted the region on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, and 1664, when the English invaded and renamed New Amsterdam after the Duke of York, the Dutch laid the foundations for a world-changing metropolis.
Before the skyscrapers, before the tenements, before Tammany Hall, was the Dutch city of New Amsterdam, capital of the colony of New Netherland. The secret to New York’s dynamism is in its roots. can match its vitality, its capacity for reinventing itself, its turbulent creativity, or its impact on the country as a whole. Have you ever wondered why New York is the most dynamic city on earth? With all due respect to Chicago and Los Angeles, no place in the U.S.
View the archive of my 90-minute class and discover the Five Things I’ve Learned about how the Dutch founding of New York City shaped the world’s most dynamic metropolis – and continues to impact America.
0 kommentar(er)
