Rating: 
Summary: What they SHOULD teach you about history
Review: As a lover of non-fiction and history, it was an absolute pleasure to discover the incredible history of Dutch Manhattan. While the chronology of the book is a little disjointed at times, Shorto manages to bring certain characters into a heroic light. The battle-hadrened Stuyvesant and Van Der Donck are two figures that have become eternally etched in my mind. It amazes me that a character as seemingly important as Van Der Donck can be excluded from every single grade school textbook. The Dutch colony of Manhattan, for its many freedoms which we hold so dearly today, is as important to American history as the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Shorto truely has helped to give proper acknowledgement to a forgotten period in our country's past.
Rating: 
Summary: Must read?
Review: As a native New Yorker it was fascinating reading about the Dutch times here and how they are still so much with us nearly 400 years later. Yes, sometimes the writing is a little cumbersome. However, this is a sorely neglected area of our country's colonial era history that has desperately needed more research. I have already recommended it several times to friends.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth reading!
Review: Being both a native Manhattan-ite, and of Dutch descent, I'd have to say that in the NYC public school system of the 30's and 40's, good as it was, the origins of New Netherland were scarcely covered. Certainly the additional information contained in this book (which perhaps to an historical scholar may be too 'readable' and occasionally repetitious ) is a worthwhile addition to understanding how the Dutch influenced the future character of Manhattan. The documents which are currently being translated and on which most of Shorto's book is based, will surely become part and parcel of a more balanced view of Manhattan's earliest history.
Rating:
Summary: Super read ! Thanks from a Patroon's descendant.
Review: Due to my direct NYC family line going back to Patroon Cornelis Melyn, and a NYC school-child's background visiting the Mus. of City of NY on 5th Ave. (where there was a scale windmill that rotated) I knew alot of the basic details and had even dome some original source research along the way such as reading the Braeden Raedt (Broad Advice to the Citizens...) at the NY Public Library. BUT, but, but, Shorto brought the times and protagonists to life for me, and I feel almost as if I had seen a good movie on the subject. I am very grateful to him and the hard work done in the translations up in Albany. My one regret is that my ancestor, despite probably being "in the right," was so obnoxious to Stuyvesant. Shorto actually made me feel some sincere sympathy for Stuyvesant. I hope the author or book's website makes it possible for descendants of the New Amsterdam days to contact the author. I tried looking up Shorto in the telephone book, and searched the whole website but there was no "contact author" link. Alas, I'll have to find a real piece of paper and an envelope, both rarities in my digital apartment, and write Shorto a thank-you letter (and describe how sad it was for me to work as a "global banker" high up in the WTC in Sept. 01 and personally experience the terrorist events on what was for me, always, a very sacred area of NYC; in a building which was one of the most visible end results of 300 or so years of commerce set in motion by Melyn and other of Shorto's subjects). Finally, as Melyn was ultimately victorious in his legal battle over Stuyvesant, perhaps we can have a Patroon Melyn Ball every year in Albany the weekend before The Netherland-America Foundation in NYC has their Stuyvesant Ball !? Had I not been a descendant, I don't think I ever would have read the fascinating Broad Advice pamphlet. It is very amusing and intriguing --- any New Yorker's "must-read!"
Rating:
Summary: Eye-Opening History
Review: Ever since I became a resident of Manhattan, I have become more and more interested in the City's history. I've also always been interested in what a place is like before modern civilization comes in and creates what we see every day. With this look at Manhattan in the time of the Dutch, Mr. Shorto give us a rural glimpse at this most urban of islands.Every schoolchild knows that Manhattan was originally settled by the Dutch and that New York City was originally New Amsterdam. In fact, that the entire region between the English settlements in Virginia & Massachusetts was New Holland. And yet, we are also so brought up on the idea of the thirteen original "English" colonies that it is easy to forget the powerful influence the Dutch had on the formation of these American colonies. By digging into the newly translated records of the Dutch colony, Mr. Shorto is able to open our eyes to more than just a few place names (Harleem becomes Harlem, the "Jonker" becomes Yonkers, etc.) and the bad memory of Peter Stuyvesant. He shows the lasting cultural influence that the Dutch inroads into the Hudson Valley had on the American nation. It is impossible to relate all of the eye-opening information that Mr. Shorto reveals in this book. Needless to say, there is a lot here. I was particularly interested in the story of "the Jonker" Adriaen van der Donck, the young Dutch lawyer whose liberal interpretation of Dutch law helped bring many of the freedoms we now hold dear to the American psyche. And I loved being able to image this island as a land of villages (both Indian & European) with farms and vast tracks of unspoilt land. Mr. Shorto is really able to bring this world to life. In brief, if you have any interest at all in the history of Manhattan, you would be foolish to miss this book. Even someone interested in American history in general will want to read this book, I think. As Mr. Shorto makes pains to point out, this island was the center of a multicultural community from day one that stretched its melting pot ideals deep into the heart of America. It is a fascinating story.
Rating: 
Summary: Erroneous premise, annoying style
Review: Given all the scholarship to which this book lays claim, one would have hoped for more. The premise that the Dutch colony that was the founding entity of New York has been "forgotten" is erroneous from the outset. Anyone who has been educated in New York State public schools knows that this is not the case. The subtitle does, however, make for an attention-grabber from the outset, which is likely exactly what the author had in mind. While he certainly expounds on many details of that colony that are not commonly known, but are by no means new discoveries to any student of New York history, his penchant for the sensational is, unfortunately, merely a technique which continues throughout the text--using similarly sensational chapter titles, for example, when it is apparent that the titles refer only to what should have been footnotes to the overall story.
This is a book sorely in need of a good editor. The author's use of anachronistic, Twenty-first Century slang and colloquialisms (describing the first clergyman in the colony as the "bitchiest, moodiest" man in the colony, referring to the colony itself as a "bottom-up economy" and so on,)jarringly disrupt the historical narrative, as does his tendency to jump back and forth between the times he seeks to recreate and the present. His love affair with the frequently-misused semicolon and the word "then," are nothing less than poor style. This book looks more like a product that was in too much of a hurry to get to print in order to capitalize on the New Netherland Project than the work of scholarship its lengthy bibliography would have it be.
Rating:
Summary: Erroneous premise, annoying style
Review: Given all the scholarship to which this book lays claim, one would have hoped for more. The premise that the Dutch colony that was the founding entity of New York has been "forgotten" is erroneous from the outset. Anyone who has been educated in New York State public schools knows that this is not the case. The subtitle does, however, make for an attention-grabber from the outset, which is likely exactly what the author had in mind. While he certainly expounds on many details of that colony that are not commonly known, but are by no means new discoveries to any student of New York history, his penchant for the sensational is, unfortunately, merely a technique which continues throughout the text--using similarly sensational chapter titles, for example, when it is apparent that the titles refer only to what should have been footnotes to the overall story.
This is a book sorely in need of a good editor. The author's use of anachronistic, Twenty-first Century slang and colloquialisms (describing the first clergyman in the colony as the "bitchiest, moodiest" man in the colony, referring to the colony itself as a "bottom-up economy" and so on,)jarringly disrupt the historical narrative, as does his tendency to jump back and forth between the times he seeks to recreate and the present. His love affair with the frequently-misused semicolon and the word "then," are nothing less than poor style. This book looks more like a product that was in too much of a hurry to get to print in order to capitalize on the New Netherland Project than the work of scholarship its lengthy bibliography would have it be.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting idea for a book, poor follow through
Review: I don't know if this person is just a bad author or if or if they just can't write this type of book but this book is horrible. I'm not quite done it yet and I don't know if I'll bother finishing. While this is a story that needs to be told it deserves a better person to do so.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, informative, provocative, well written
Review: I have lived in Manhattan for more than 30 years. But until I read this book, I assumed that the character of New York-commercial, contentious, tolerant, and multi-ethnic-was the product of European mass migrations starting, I suppose, with the Irish in the mid-nineteenth century. But, Shorto argues persuasively that this personality took hold much earlier. In fact, he shows how New York's character descends directly from the tolerant and litigious culture of the Dutch, a mighty commercial power in early 1600's, who founded a trading post and village on Manhattan in 1623. I, for one, am convinced. I also enjoyed this book for its resurrection of Peter Stuyvesant, who, to most New Yorkers, is simply the Dutch governor with a peg leg who retired to what is now the Lower East Side. Thankfully, Shorto fills out this picture and shows Stuyvesant as an autocrat who opposed democratic reforms. These bubbled up from the colony's earliest settlers, who believed such reforms might prevent the misrule that, in one case, lead to a bloody war with indigenous Americans. A good read and highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY DISAPPOINTING
Review: I love any book about New York, but this one spends so much time disparaging other books, that ultimately itlost me too. A SWEET AND ALIEN LAND: THE STORY OF DUTCH NEW YORK by Henri and Barbara van der Zee remains the unchallenged best researched and best written book about New Amsterdam. If this book hadn't received so much attention, and I hadn't waited so long for it to arrrive, I might not have judged it so firmly, but it is extremely disappointing. I do not recommend it.
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