Taking Manhattan with Russell Shorto in Conversation with Dennis J. Maika

Why is New York the archetypal modern city – brash, bold, pulsing with energy?

The author of The Island at the Center of the World offers up a thrilling narrative of how New York came to be.

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 archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland’s canny director general.

Taking Manhattan tells the riveting story of the birth of New York City as a center of capitalism and pluralism, a foundation from which America would rise. It also shows how the paradox of New York’s origins — boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement — reflects America’s promise and failure to this day. Russell Shorto, whose work has been described as ​“astonishing” (New York Times) and ​“literary alchemy” (Chicago Tribune), has once again mined archival sources to offer a vibrant tale and a fresh and trenchant argument about American beginnings.

Russell Shorto is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at The New York Historical and senior scholar at the New Netherland Institute. He writes books of narrative history. He believes history is most meaningful when explored through individuals in conflict. His books have been published in fourteen languages and have won numerous awards. In 2009 he was given a knighthood by the Dutch government for advancing Dutch-American historical awareness. In 2018 he was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.

Dennis J. Maika is Senior Historian at the New Netherland Institute. As a specialist on colonial New York with a Ph.D. in history from New York University, he has written numerous articles and papers and served as a consultant for a variety of local history and education projects. His recently published work on New Netherland’s slave trade grew from his on-going book project about Manhattan merchants and their city government in the Dutch and English periods of seventeenth-century New York.