Amsterdam

History

Russell Shorto

Europe

ABACUS +

Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason

Sixteen years after René Descartes' death in Stockholm  in 1650, a pious French ambassador exhumed the remains of the controversial philosopher  to transport them back to Paris. Thus began a 350-year saga that saw Descartes' bones  traverse a continent, passing between kings, philosophers, poets, and painters.But as Russell Shorto shows in this deeply engaging book, Descartes' bones also  played a role in some of the most momentous episodes in history, which are also part  of the philosopher's metaphorical remains: the birth of science, the rise of democracy,  and the earliest debates between reason and faith. Descartes' Bones is a flesh-and-blood  story about the battle between religion and rationalism that rages to this day.A New York Times Notable Book 

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Island At The Center Of The World

Americas

Based on new documents just translated from C17th Dutch, this book tells the story of how a wilderness island populated by wolves, wild strawberries and native Indians, situated on a perfect natural harbour at the mouth of a great river leading into the centre of a new continent, became the crucial prize in a conflict between the Dutch and the English about who would control the recently discovered American continent. This is the page-turning story of the early years of Manhattan under Dutch rule, with at its heart a battle between men who would be its leader, the autocratic despot Stuyvesant, and the liberal-minded lawyer Van den Donck. It is Russell Shorto's thesis that the overlooked history of the original Dutch colony, and the attitudes of the Dutch settlers, were the principal inspiration for the free-trade, multi-cultural, upwardly-mobile 'melting pot' spirit of New York, and hence America.

The Island at the Centre of the World

DOUBLEDAY

Careers for People Who Like People

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt HMH

Careers for People Who Like to Perform

It was situated on a perfect natural harbour at the mouth of a great river leading into a huge new land. Manhattan Island was to grow into the most powerful city in the most powerful country in the world. THE ISLAND AT THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD returns to the origins of New York's extraordinary history. It tells how a wilderness populated only by wolves and native tribes became the melting pot from which developed the free-trade, multi-cultural and upwardly-mobile spirit of New York that in turn would shape the whole American nation.

The Island at the Centre of the World : The Untold Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Founding of New York

World

Black Swan.

Depicts the range of jobs available for those who want to make good use of foreign language fluency through interviews with a tour consultant, a literary agent, an international lawyer, and a foreign-language textbook editor.

Careers for Foreign Language Experts

Children's Books

Education & Reference

Tandem Library

A New York Times Bestseller In the late 1960s, an archivist in the New York State Library discovered an astounding 12,000 pages of centuries-old documents from the Dutch colony centered on Manhattan. For the past thirty years, scholar Charles Gehring has been translating this national treasure, and now, Russell Shorto has used this vital material to construct a sweeping narrative of Manhattan's founding that gives a startling, fresh perspective on how America began.

The Island At The Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

Thorndike Press

An endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed Island at the Center of the World Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography-the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay and the democratic philosophy that this enduring struggle fostered. Amsterdam is the font of liberalism, in both its senses. Tolerance for free thinking and free love make it a place where, in the words of one of its mayors, "craziness is a value." But the city also fostered the deeper meaning of liberalism, one that profoundly influenced America: political and economic freedom. Amsterdam was home not only to religious dissidents and radical thinkers but to the world's first great global corporation. In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a sixteenth-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch-and world-history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City

Little,Brown

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Books by Russell Shorto