Book Description
When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving,
polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Drawing on this remarkable archive, Russell Shorto has created a gripping narrative–a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan–that transforms our understanding of early America.
The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture.
The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.
Customer Reviews:
Little known yet influential colony.......2007-09-23
In this groundbreaking book on America's early history we are given a treat and shown how much of our history came not only from the English Puritans but by the Dutch colony of New Netherland. I was amazed to read that this little known colony has had such a profound effect on the United States and yet is little studied or referenced.
Shorto does a wonderful job in illustrating that ramifications of the free thinking and freely governed society that was the origins of the hub of early America: Manhattan. The "melting pot" that was this colony has certainly defined the US as a country today. Other evidence of the long forgotten Dutch colony: Bronck (Bronx), Breuckele (Brooklyn), Jonker's Land (Yonkers), Roode Eylandt (Rhode Island), Nieuw Haarlem (Harlem), Greenwyck (Greenwich Village) among others.
Additionally such well known streets as Wall Street (a Dutch street bordering a wall that was built to keep the invading English out), Broadway Street (obviously, a Dutch street that was broad). The first district attorney can be traced back to the Dutch schout (van der Donck in this case), which was the colonies law officer. No other countries employed such an officer except the Dutch at the time. Some other trivial associations: koeckjes (cookies), or koolsla (the favorite American BBQ side dish cole slaw).
Shorto does a fantastic job in not only illustrating the importance of this little known colony but in also bringing to life the history of the era and politics of the European countries of the time. I would definitely recommend.
5 stars.
An island to make New Yorkers proud.......2007-08-27
This is a well written history of the Dutch settlement in New York. A great deal of the information has been recently uncovered. New Yorkers will recognize in themselves with pride, the inheritance received from these early settlers.
Not There Yet........2007-08-10
This could have been a 5 star book about a rarely mentioned topic. The author put together a concise work into the history of the growth from New Amsterdam to New York. He chronicles the era of the first Dutch settlers & draws from a wealth of unique first hand infoormation. The main point of the book is how important New Amsterdam was in the growth of the USA. But, although I personally agree with his thesis, he did a mediocre job of proving it. The person of Adraien van der Donck, a lawyer is woven into the story as a very influential person. But, the data given is scanty & the connections are questionable. The other theme, a refreshing one is the deep racial & ethnic tolerance the Dutch appear to have had. A third theme is the role of government which under the Dutch was not a monarchy unlike most European ones at that time.It is a vivid & entertaining story that leaves the reader a bit frustrated. You keep asking yourself, when is the author going to connect the dots? Lastly, the grammatical errors were far too numerous for a semi-scholarly book as this. I recommend it as a good read, but overall it only gets 3 stars.
Dutch.......2007-08-02
This book was sent to my great nephew...we are Dutch descent and many
of our ancestors are mentioned in this fascinating history. Glad to get it at such a reasonable price.
Elderhostel is right!.......2007-08-02
The reading list for the Elderhostel ONE LOCK AT A TIME: THE LIVING HISTORY OF THE ERIE CANAL starts with this book, and highly recommends it, as does our U.S. lecturer. It's not an "easy read," but worth the time and effort. I learned much about the Dutch in our country and their effects on our lives, continuing to this day.
Book Description
In a landmark work of history, Russell Shorto presents astonishing information on the founding of our nation and reveals in riveting detail the crucial role of the Dutch in making America what it is today.
In the late 1960s, an archivist in the New York State Library made an astounding discovery: 12,000 pages of centuries-old correspondence, court cases, legal contracts, and reports from a forgotten society: the Dutch colony centered on Manhattan, which predated the thirteen “original” American colonies. For the past thirty years scholar Charles Gehring has been translating this trove, which was recently declared a national treasure. Now, Russell Shorto has made use of this vital material to construct a sweeping narrative of Manhattan’s founding that gives a startling, fresh perspective on how America began.
In an account that blends a novelist’s grasp of storytelling with cutting-edge scholarship, The Island at the Center of the World strips Manhattan of its asphalt, bringing us back to a wilderness island—a hunting ground for Indians, populated by wolves and bears—that became a prize in the global power struggle between the English and the Dutch. Indeed, Russell Shorto shows that America’s founding was not the work of English settlers alone but a result of the clashing of these two seventeenth century powers. In fact, it was Amsterdam—Europe’s most liberal city, with an unusual policy of tolerance and a polyglot society dedicated to free trade—that became the model for the city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan. While the Puritans of New England were founding a society based on intolerance, on Manhattan the Dutch created a free-trade, upwardly-mobile melting pot that would help shape not only New York, but America.
The story moves from the halls of power in London and The Hague to bloody naval encounters on the high seas. The characters in the saga—the men and women who played a part in Manhattan’s founding—range from the philosopher Rene Descartes to James, the Duke of York, to prostitutes and smugglers. At the heart of the story is a bitter power struggle between two men: Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony, and a forgotten American hero named Adriaen van der Donck, a maverick, liberal-minded lawyer whose brilliant political gamesmanship, commitment to individual freedom, and exuberant love of his new country would have a lasting impact on the history of this nation.
Customer Reviews:
The Island at The Center of The World,.......2007-09-14
We all grew up in our American history classes with the image of peg-legged old Peter Stuyvesant ruling chaotically over the short-lived Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. They were a sorry lot, these Dutch, who didn't understand what they had on Manhattan, an island that awaited the organizational verve of the English to finally get under way toward its present greatness.
Would you believe that this view of the Dutch is a lot of poppycock? According to author Russell Shorto, it is that and worse. His book THE ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD, published by Doubleday, tells the story of the Dutch colonization of Manhattan and large portions of the land around that island in the seventeenth century. Because the actual Dutch records of that colonization have only recently been unearthed from libraries, we've more or less accepted the view of Dutch incompetence that has been foisted upon us by history. That is, by English history. As Winston Churchill famously remarked, history is written by the victors, and in this case, the English won the day when they laid a naval blockade on Manhattan in 1664 and took over the colony. According to Shorto, that triumph resulted in a very skewed and inaccurate presentation of what the Dutch achieved in Manhattan, and therefore of what American culture owes them.
The main character is, of course, Peter Stuyvesant, the man who surrendered to the English. When he arrived in New Amsterdam in 1647, the town had just a few hundred citizens and was located at the very southern tip of Manhattan Island, around the area of present-day Battery Park. It was low, rude and dirty. Stuyvesant was the representative of the Dutch West India Company, which had founded the colony. Subject to very poor leadership, the town was in need of a clear-headed, strong-minded leader, and Stuyvesant certainly was both of those. He was also a company man, and the idea of the citizens ruling themselves in any sort of way was simply beneath Stuyvesant's notice. It would be madness, the antithesis to the seventeenth century idea that God grants the right to lead only to the right sort of person and that all the rest should follow. The leveling sentiments of the American Revolution were one hundred thirty years away in the unforeseeable future.
But there were a few others in New Amsterdam who viewed themselves as viable contenders to lead the colony, and one of these was Adrian Van der Donck. An educated attorney who had taken full advantage of the new liberalisms of thought offered in Dutch universities by such as Descartes, Grotius and Spinoza, he had arrived in the colony some years before. The Dutch were already known for their tolerance of modes of thought and behavior other than their own. A great trading people, a people of the sea, the Dutch had for centuries been aware of the diversity of peoples elsewhere in the world. Amsterdam itself was noted for its polyglot, diverse culture, and Van der Donck had seen all this.
Van der Donck is the second protagonist of this remarkable book, and it is the ongoing struggle between these two men that fills its pages. Van der Donck and some others plagued Stuyvesant for years by pleading the case before him, and then before the Dutch Estates General in Amsterdam, that the Dutch West India Company's rule was stifling to the citizens of the colony and, worse, lousy for business. Stuyvesant, in their view, ruled badly with an iron-hand. Commerce was stifled by his authoritarian rigidity. The rising English and Swedish power in the region, based in the sizable colonies that those two countries had established nearby, was a continuing threat. Van der Donck and his friends presented brief after brief to the Estates in an attempt to break the Dutch West India Company's autocratic hold over Manhattan and to replace it with a more republican-style government devoted to open trade.
They made remarkable progress with this idea and indeed the Dutch government had arrived at the moment of voiding the West India Company's contract in the colony. But ultimately these efforts failed because of England's Oliver Cromwell and his wish to break up the Dutch influence on the seas. It began as a trade war and then became a real one when the First Anglo-Dutch War broke out in July, 1652. Van der Donck and the Dutch West India Company suddenly changed in the eyes of the Dutch government. War made the company's seeming stability in the colony appear all-important. It also made them think that Van der Donck perhaps was not really the progressive man of brilliant ideas for commerce and governance, but rather a dangerous agent of change who could ruin The Netherlands' efforts to defend its own territory.
Stuyvesant was back in charge. Van der Donck was out in the cold.
But the long-term effects of his efforts lasted beyond the war and beyond the Dutch colony itself. They resulted in much that became very important to the development of the American colonies and, finally, the United States. "Van der Donck's dream became real in a way he never imagined," Shorto writes. "The structure he helped win for the place grounded it in Dutch tolerance and diversity, just as he hoped it would, which in turn touched off the island's rapid growth and increased the influx of settlers from around Europe, just as he predicted. What he didn't predict was that the English would appreciate this fact, and maintain the structure, and that it would support a future culture of unprecedented energy and vitality and creativity."
One of the most interesting stories in this book is that of what happened to the documents that were kept by the Dutch colony and its officers. This trove of papers that go so far in explaining the complexity of the issues of New Netherland lay unnoticed for a few hundred years in various libraries. Only in the 1970's, when the translation of the papers to English finally began, did the importance of the Dutch influence in New York begin to get truly clarified.
The last chapter of THE ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD is a little coda in which Shorto tells of the journey of the records of the colony over two and a half centuries, in the New World and the Old, always out of the public eye.
It is a riveting small essay on great good fortune. If you do not value librarians and those who care about the written record, you should read this chapter. It will certainly set you straight because these New Netherland papers survived through swashbuckling derring-do and because of a deep concern for history on the part of a very few individuals over the centuries.
The records were neglected, subject to mould, fire, wars and general indifference. But they remain more or less intact now because of the lucky interest of the few individuals that seemed to understand what they had in hand. Without them, the records would have perished, this book wouldn't have been written and the ongoing revelations of the true importance of the Dutch Manhattan colony would have been lost to us.
For those interested in why New York is New York, and why the United States developed the way it did, those efforts - and this book - are invaluable.
Terence Clarke is a novelist, journalist and film maker who writes about the arts at [...]
The Island at the Center of the World.......2007-01-13
Exellent read and well documented. The book is intended for those who are interested in the early beginnings of the New World. The author makes the point that the history that we are taught was written by the English and so is slanted to that audience. To understand the significance of the Dutch contributions it would be useful to also understand the competition between English and the Dutch for dominance in the merchantile development.
The Island at the Center of the World.......2006-11-11
Excellent and well writen documentary of a little-known period of the development of the United States. It shows the influence of the Dutch settlers in establising the true melting pot. No other nation provided the guidelines for the creation of a true democracy as the Dutch did it in Manhattan!
The Island at the Center of the World.......2006-11-10
There is a danger in reading this book. You will find yourself buying it for all of your intelligent friends who love to read stories of historical characters that are portrayed in exciting adventure settings and come alive to you in the telling. The entire making of this book with the back story of finding the New Amsterdam records hidden away in Albany and the translater/interpreter of those documents; made the story even more intriquing to me. I must buy you the book, my friend, I cannot part with my own copy.
Remembering The Forgotten Colony.......2006-10-02
In 1638, Jan Snedegar is noted as operating a tavern or inn on Long Island. A 19th-century incarnation of the Snedecor Inn is still standing, in Connetquot River State Park Preserve. I am one of his descendants, 14 generations later. Snedecor was my mother's maiden name; she grew up on Long Island.
Thus my bias and thus my fifth star. The story is not complete here. To place the colony in full context would require several more volumes. But what there is, is very good. The version I obtained at the library was the large print, which lacked the detailed chapter notes and index -- go for the regular print edition unless you really need the big font. That is one reason for denying a fifth star. Another is, as has been stated by previous reviewers, an incomplete acknowledgement of the role of Rhode Island in the matter of freedom of worship in early America. (Context again.)
Nonetheless, it is true that when it became New York the Dutch remained. The idea of the Bill of Rights originated with New York; the Dutch essentially named the places in downstate. Their influence remains today: here I am!
Learn more. Read the book.
Amazon.com
An unspoiled coastline bathed in spectacular light--just far enough from Manhattan bustle--made the Hamptons seductive for generations of creative types. Hamptons Bohemia: Two Centuries of Artists and Writers on the Beach is an entertaining survey of the personalities who found a summer or year-round haven on the southeastern end of Long Island. Numerous color photographs--of artworks, personalities, and landscape views--offer inviting glimpses of the shifting tides of culture. The story begins with early 19th-century figures like James Fenimore Cooper, who abandoned a failing whaling business to take up writing novels. Then came the genteel landscape painters with their portable easels and sunshades. By the 1950s (the era of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and many others), bohemia was in full swing. Since then the Hamptons have become a clubby getaway for artists who've already made it, from Kurt Vonnegut to Julian Schnabel. --Cathy Curtis
Book Description
Bargain Books are non-returnable.
For more than two centuries, the Hamptons have been home to a vibrant community of artists and writers, lured by the golden dunes, refreshing breezes, radiant landscapes, and frequent visits from the Muse. It was here that Winslow Homer painted bathers and strollers on the ocean beach and Lee Krasner created her Earth Series in a cramped studio shared with her husband, Jackson Pollock. From Herman Melville to F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck to George Plimpton, these are just a few of the gifted figures to draw inspiration from this famous and fashionable retreat. Richly illustrated with archival photos and reproductions of the artists' work, Hamptons Bohemia chronicles the evolution of a community and the colorful characters who have inhabited it.
Customer Reviews:
Hamptons Bohemia.......2002-07-06
"Hamptons Bohemia" is a lovely coffee table book, but it is much more than that. It is a well-researched, thorough history of the artistic life of the Hamptons from the 18th Century to the present day.
The illustrations were an important part of my enjoyment of this book. Almost every page contains a painting by a Hamptons artist, or an offbeat photograph of a group of Hamptons writers or painters. And the illustrations are beautifully done.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Finally, the Hamptons as they should be seen.......2002-05-24
It's no surprise that artists and writers were among the first to be inspired by the natural beauty of the Hamptons. It's also no surprise that celebrities, hangers-on, and wannabees followed soon after. What some may not know is that the Hamptons exerted their draw on the creative community long before Jackson Pollock and his pals put it on the map. This book eloquently conveys the allure of this magical place and the entertaining goings-on that occur when the world's finest artists and writers intermingle.
It reinforced the love affair with my home.......2002-05-22
I was given this book as a "must have" gift. So very true. The stories and photos are sublime. I'll never look at this place in the same way. Highly recommend it.
Book Description
Some of the twentieth century's most important artists and writers--from Jackson Pollock to Saul Steinberg, Frank O'Hara to Jean Stafford--lived and worked on the East End of Long Island years before it assumed an alternate identity as the Hamptons. The home they made there, and its effect on their work, is the subject of these searching, lyrical vignettes by the critic and poet Robert Long.
Pollock moved to Springs because he thought he wanted to stop drinking, but he found a connection to nature there that inspired some of the most significant paintings of our time. Others followed him. When Fairfield Porter bought a house in Southampton, the New York School suddenly had a new headquarters, and James Schuyler and Frank O'Hara found companionship and raw material for their poems on South Main Street and on the three-hour train ride between the city and the East End. Willem de Kooning rode his bike every day between his studio in the East Hampton woods and the bay, where the light informed every brushstroke he put to canvas from the early 1960s on.
In De Kooning's Bicycle, Long mixes storytelling with history to re-create the lives and events that shaped American art and literature as we know it today, in a landscape where town met country and the modern met America's rural past.
Customer Reviews:
Not worth it.......2006-07-01
I got this book because the title was intriguing. I would have been happy with good personal anecdotes, art history, art criticism or just some good writing, but none of the above was to be found. I'm a Willem de Kooning fan and have read a bit about him and Jackson Pollack too. This book starts off with boring historical stuff about Long Island which I skimmed and then the parts about de Kooning and Pollack are rehashes about well known topics. The writing isn't very interesting and there isn't much about the artwork. The third person writing format is awkward too; lots of "he's" where it's hard to tell who "he" is. I'd say anyone who's interested in de Kooning should get "de Kooning : An American Master" by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, which is an excellent book.
Average customer rating:
- What an exciting adventure
- A key element was missing.
- Look to the Hills
- A nice novel
- Didn't live up to high Dear America standard, but ok
|
Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau, a French Slave Girl, New York Colony 1763 (Dear America Series)
Patricia C. Mckissack
Manufacturer: Scholastic Inc.
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ASIN: 0439210380 |
Book Description
Arriving with her French masters in upstate New York at the tail end of the French-Indian War, Lozette, "Zettie," an orphaned slave girl, is confronted with new landscapes, new conditions, and new conflicts. As her masters are torn between their own nationality and their somewhat reluctant new allegiance to the British colonial government, Zettie, too, must reconsider her own loyalties.
Customer Reviews:
What an exciting adventure.......2007-08-08
Zettie is a slave to Marie-Louise's father but when he dies she worries about what will happen to her. Marie-Louise convinces her fiancee to buy Zettie. They then escape to Spain and then to America in search of Marie-Louise's other brother Jacques who was thought to be dead but may in fact be alive. For Zettie, she keeps hoping Marie-Louise or Jacques will be able to free her. I like that she does eventually become freed. I enjoyed reading all about Colonial America, the forts, French and Indian wars and a part of American history I don't hear about. I liked Zettie a lot. She was a smart, clever girl who was a fabelous duelist.
A key element was missing........2006-02-22
"Look To The Hills, The Diary Of Lozette Moreau, A French Slave Girl" was a "Dear America" book that interested me greatly. I thought it'd be interesting to read about another form of slavery: companions. I admit to not knowing much about this, and I thought what better way to be introduced than through the beloved "Dear America" series? I must say that I was disappointed. I think that author Patricia C. McKissack is not my type of author, and I find her plots rather boring. I didn't warm up to any of the characters, and I felt that something was missing - mainly action. For the historical point of view, I enjoyed it, but for the entertaining point of view, I didn't. I "sorta" recommend.
Look to the Hills.......2005-04-04
I have read the book Look to the Hills, the diary of a French slave girl. My recommendation for this book would be, to encourage people to read it. It is about a young lady named Lozette Moreau (Zettie for short). She is a slave to a young French lady named Marie-Louise Boyer (Ree for short). Ree's father purchased Zettie as a young girl to be a companion to Ree. At least that's what everybody tells Zettie, but she knows she is really just her slave. She goes wherever Ree goes, and does what ever Ree does. This book is mostly about the life of Zettie.
The year is 1763. The war between the French and the British is going on. Ree's bother is battling the British in America, to gain more land for the French. Ree's other brother could not fight in the war because he had and injured knee. Unfortunately Ree's brother had previously gambled money, and had lost his fathers whole fortune. This book tells a lot of historical facts. One example would be the fact that the French are fighting the British and many, many soldiers are getting killed. Zettie falls in love with one of Ree's friends that is very kind to her and is a true gentleman, Saint George. When Ree's brother arranges a marriage for Ree to get married to Jean-Paul. Ree and Zettie both go on a carriage to the French suburbs where he lives. But they are robbed secretly by Saint George so that Ree would not have to marry Jean-Paul. Ree decides to go and find her brother, which is in the war since her father has already died. Saint George helps them get to Spain to get closer to America to find her brother.They stay in an old friends house. But they do not treat Zettie very well. This book really showed me the way that a black woman really suffered in that time even if she did have an amazing owner that was kind to her.
so in other words I really recommend that you read this book. It actually inspired me to be more grateful and thankful that I live in this time period. It showed me that it was really tough back then and even if there were some nice masters, there were still some really tough ones too. For example when Zettie and Ree went to Spain, they lived in a house with an old friend of Ree. The woman who lived in there had absolutely no respect for Zettie and treated her like an animal. I hope that you read this book because it was wonderful to read, and I really enjoyed learning about the life of a French slave girl.
A nice novel .......2004-09-21
After starting high school, I started taking French as a foreign language so I was really looking forward to reading this book and learning more about the French culture. The book didn't disappoint me. 12-year-old Lorzette Moreau "Zettie" is a companion, a better world for a slave in the upper class French society. Her mistress, Marie Moreau "Rae" is set to be married to a man she does not love so that Maries brother Pierre can pay off his debts. Zettie is also set to be sold off. When Zettie begins the diary she is locked in a room waiting for the day she will be sold and never see her mistress again. Little does she know that Rae has a plan for escape. After a daring escape, Zettie and Rae, with the help of friends, find themselves at the Ortega's house, Rae's godparents. There, they learn that Jacques, Rae's older brother, presumed dead from the war between France and England, may be alive and well as a captive in the Colonies, America. So, soon Zettie finds herself setting foot in a new land. However, Zettie finds that the way Americans treat slaves are no differnt than in France. Even though Rae is very nice to her, Zettie still isn't Rae's equal. Zettie yearns for freedom and she soon begins to learn that she might be able to use her skills to do just that. Will Zettie be able to look to the other side of the hills, freedom?
I definitely enjoyed this book. It had a new perspective on the slave, one that was refreshing and different. I recommend all readers of Dear America to read this book.
Didn't live up to high Dear America standard, but ok.......2004-05-28
Look to the Hills is a story that tells of Lozette Moreau's, a French slave girl, journey from France to New York in 1763 and of her ongoing wish for freedom. Whatever happens, this spirited girl always keeps her hopes alive. From Aix-en-Provence, France, to Spain, across the Atlantic Ocean, to New York Colony, wherever she goes, Lozette, or Zettie, is forever hopeful, and inspires others to be so too.
Zettie has been Marie-Louise Boyer's, or Ree's, companion for as long as she can remember. Companions are slaves who go everywhere and do everything with their masters, sharing many of the same privileges. Zettie has always been well-treated and has never really considered herself a slave. But when Ree's father dies and her ruthless brother Pierre takes over, Zettie realizes how vulnerable she really is. Ree is forced to marry a man she hates, and she persuades her husband to purchase Zettie, who Pierre is auctioning, as a wedding gift for Ree. Their friend St. Georges then helps Zettie and Ree escape to Spain, where they will search for Ree's lost brother, Jacques. They learn that he is in America, where he was presumed to be killed in battle, and they sail to New York.
Once in New York, Zettie and Ree move to Fort Niagara. While Ree finds her brother, who has been accused of deserting the French army, and falls in love, Zettie has her own adventures. She meets many new friends, learns about her heritiage, becomes involved in the French and Indian war and the wars between the Indians and the English colonists, and competes in a fencing match. But most of all, Zettie inspires everyone she meets to want freedom and to keep their hopes up.
This book told about some topics we haven't learned much about: slavery before the Revolutionary War, and slavery in other countries. The characters were very believable, but after the first half of the book, it didn't have much of a plot.
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- Artists of Long Island's East End
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Studios by the Sea: Artists of Long Island's East End
Bob Colacello , and
Jonathan Becker
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
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ASIN: 0810904489 |
Book Description
"The artistic heritage of this place does matter." —David Salle
Julian Schnabel owns a 10-bedroom Stanford White spread in Montauk, and Ross Bleckner has settled into Truman Capote's Sagaponack saltbox. The Hamptons have come a long way since Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner borrowed $5,000 from Peggy Guggenheim to pay for an unheated farmhouse in Springs, but one thing hasn't changed: the East End's allure to America's leading artists. In Studios by the Sea, Vanity Fair correspondent Bob Colacello and photographer Jonathan Becker go inside the renovated barns, split-shingled cottages, and minimalist mansions of the modern-day artist colony that is Long Island's East End.
Larry Rivers, John Chamberlain, April Gornik, Chuck Close, and David Salle are among the 40 prominent painters and sculptors featured in this gossipy, anecdotal book, full of luscious, sunlight-infused images.
Customer Reviews:
Artists of Long Island's East End.......2007-02-19
This is a beautiful book, with great shots of the studios of different artists. The studios are as different
from each other as the artists are themselves. It has given me great inspiration in designing my own
studio.
Book Description
Two great waves of immigration--one at the start of the twentieth century and another in its final decades--transformed the history and personality of New York City. This book is the first in-depth comparison of New York's two immigration eras. Nancy Foner reassesses the myths that surround both sets of immigrants and explores topics ranging from gender roles to racial attitudes to the role of education in assimilation. Copublished with the Russell Sage Foundation
Customer Reviews:
Useful, if not brilliant.......2000-12-09
This book is useful, though not brilliant. It provides a comparison between the great wave of Jewish and Italian immigrants to New York at the turn of the last century, and the present wave of immigrants from Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union. Foner's account look at where immigrants live, how they work, immigrant women in particular, the sting of prejudice, the matter of ties to the old country and going to school. She seeks to refute the view which uses the success of the first wave and selected members of the second wave as a stick to beat everyone else. By and large she succeeds. She reminds us that one reason why many Asian-American have excellent education and social mobility records in the United States is because they were well educated members of the middle class back in Asia. She points out that it took a couple of generations before Jews experienced middle class status and high school graduation. She reminds us that despite fears of America becoming increasingly balkanized new immigrants are more "american" than previous waves because of the world of mass culture. There are nuanced discussions about the mixed blessings of wage labor and increased independence. There is an interesting chapter on how Jews and Italians were viewed in the past as non-white, and how Asians and Hispanics are becoming increasingly "white." There is much in here that counters the widespread moralistic underclass discourses that have made The New Republic the fashionable magazine of our day's Vanity Fair. There is a nuanced discussion of the effect immigrants have on black employment. Some pundits, shedding crocodile tears for African-Americans suggest they would be better off if immigrants were not taking their jobs. But in fact, as Foner points out, many immigrants are not directly displacing blacks because they work in niches where blacks either were rarely employed or actually excluded. On the other hand, working in sweatshop jobs often makes them less attractive to native workers and helps lower wage rates. Often employers use stereotypes to immigrants' benefits and blacks' detriment. On the other hand by increasing the New York population they encourage African American strength in public employment and stop the decline in business that comes from a falling population. So why does this book only get three stars? Well, many of its insights aren't particularly new, that they may be a revelation to readers does not mean they are to people who study the topic. There is little about politics of immigrants, either electorally or through such measures as unions. There could be more about class in the book, both within immigrant communities and within the problem of New York as a whole. It is not that the subject goes unmentioned but it is noteworthy that there is no entry under the index for "Gulliani." The result is nourishing, but bland; it could use a little more bite.
Book Description
This volume covers the history of the Dutch colony New Netherland on the North American continent. Based on extensive research of archival material on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, much of which has not been previously used, this work provides the most complete overview yet of a colony that has been generally neglected by historians. The chapters deal with themes such as patterns of immigration, government and justice, economy, religion, social structure, material culture, and mentality of the colonists. This book will be very useful not just for students of Dutch colonial history, but also for scholars in early American history.
Readership: All those interested in the history of New York (both City and State), American colonial history in the seventeenth century, Dutch colonial history.
Customer Reviews:
New Netherland Described at Great Cost.......2007-05-07
This is a very good book for those with an interest in New Netherland in general and New Amsterdam in particular. Jaap Jacobs compares and contrasts the social, economic, governmental, religious, and cultural practices and institutions of New Netherland with those of the Netherlands and describes the role of the West India Company throughout the period of Dutch governance of the colony. The author's text is thoroughly documented with source information in footnotes on nearly every page. For what is clearly a definitive work on life in New Netherland, I found the text to be very clearly written, without tedium, and surprisingly readable. Readers having ancestors among the inhabitants of New Amsterdam may be pleasantly surprised to find accounts of the doings, occupations, or legal problems of some of those ancestors. I found several such accounts and am doubtful that this information would have come to me in any other way. This is a very expensive book, however, and I subtracted a star from my rating because of its cost for an individual purchaser. I would encourage libraries with meaningful history collections or particular interest in 17th-century colonies in North America to obtain Jacobs' book for use of their patrons.
Excellent........2005-09-09
This is a fantastic reference book for anyone interested in the Dutch Atlantic World, specifically New Netherland (obviously). I have not purchased it yet, but the bits that I have read at the library have been most useful.
Note: It is encyclopedic!
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