In history, England had portrayed itself as a nation that rapidly expanded its empire. During Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the nation had control of various colonies. However, in The Island at the Center of the World, Russell Shorto portrays England as a nation that was behind others. It wasn’t always a powerful nation with control over […]
Pessia Goldberg IDC 4001H – Prof. Maciuika 03/03/14 Whatever its flaws, New York has always been known as a bastion of personal and religious tolerance. But what I found most surprising so far in Russell Shorto’s The Island at the Center of the World is just how ingrained that sentiment is in America. Not only […]
In The Island at the Center of the World, Russell Shorto discusses the ideas, beliefs, cultural forces, and people that made the Dutch colony of Manhattan. When thinking of New York City in its early stages, many people assume it was largely influenced and established by the English. Originally founded by Henry Hudson and the […]
Derick Liu 3/4/14 As a Psychology major, the most interesting and surprising section of the reading has to be the short anecdote regarding the Dutch children found at the start of chapter five. It mentions the differences between children of Dutch heritage and the children of Puritan society. Usually, when I hear the term Puritan, […]
The Timescape exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York encaptured New York City’s rich history in a brief twenty-one minutes touching upon its earliest settlers and how they cultivated the land to the 80s crack epidemic and through modern times. What the exhibit failed to encapture was the rich, diverse groups of […]
Stephen Elliott IDC 4001H March 4th, 2014 The story of Dutch Manhattan, which I’ve known as a string of myths and names without faces, came to me as no real surprise. Like a bullish investment, the Dutch poured out their coin purses to purchase a plot of land that held the seeds for the future […]
Alessandra Rao IDC4001H Island at the Center of the World I’ll start with the most unsurprising things I learned. Throughout Chapter 5, it was mentioned several times that Manhattan was used as an important port for the West India Company. Given the fact that Manhattan is an island, it is only natural that its geographic […]
New York City is full of rich history. The development of this magnificent city is taught in all of our history classes. But sometimes, teachers leave out minute details or figures that played a role in shaping this one of a kind city. In “Island at the Center of the World,” Russell Shorto offers readers […]
Selina Lee IDC 4001H Professor Maciuika March 3, 2014 Shorto writes that New Netherland insisted on becoming a place, not just another one of the Dutch Empire’s trading posts. It was so exotic and unique that none of employees that headed New Netherland truly understood it. It’s interesting to read about New York City before […]
Natan Wise March 3rd, 2014 The standout figure of the selected chapters of Shorto’s Island at the Center of the World is undoubtedly Adriaen van der Donck. As a young lawyer on the fast track to success in the Dutch Republic, van der Donck decided to accept a high post and come over to be a member of […]
Rossella Failla- Russell Shorto’s “The Island at the Center of the World,” offers a new prespective on the story of the Dutch colonization of Manhattan. The first settlers on the island were the Dutch, pioneered by Henry Hudson and the Dutch East India Company. What I found interesting were the motivations of the Manhattan settlers. […]
Joseph Maugeri IDC4001H Who is Adrien Van der Donck and why have I never heard of him? The story of this man is one of the most interesting things I’ve learned all week. He was a man that seemingly had it all in his Dutch Republic homeland. There were tolerant attitudes, clean and safe streets, […]
Konstantin Dukhovnyy, IDC 4001H – Prof. Maciuika, 3/3/14 New Amsterdam, New York, New World, yet nothing new in the greed of the few. One of the most surprising yet understandable events that Russell Shorto’s Island at the Center of the World highlighted was how the settlement of New Amsterdam was taken by England and renamed New […]
Navtej S. Ahuja Professor Maciuika Shaping the Future of NYC 4 March, 2014 Peter Stuyvesant is often remembered for one event; surrendering the island of Manhattan (known as New Netherland at the time) to the English. Often glossed over by those studying the history of what is now perhaps the greatest metropolis of the world, […]
To be marked as a history, one must always be the first, best, and the finest that are triumphed not for his or her procedures but the victorious outcome itself. However, Russell Shorto in his writing overturns this stereotypical perspective of context of what history should be. He overthrows the concept of history as a […]
Helen Li IDC4001H The Power of Monopolies over Government In modern society, setting up a business is easy. One just needs a sponsor who can provide funding. The hardest part is to find this sponsor or multiple sponsors who are interested. Most, if not all, sponsorships today are long term economic investments and funding usually […]
Jenna Hosier Maciuika IDC 4001H March 2nd 2014 Thousands of pages of historical records being thrown out of windows, lying amidst the rubble of fires, tattered and stained throughout hundreds of years, finally surface and become translated. This is without a doubt the most revealing new information and the driving purpose of Russell Shorto’s history […]
The most surprising thing I learned from reading Russell Shorto’s “Island at the Center of the World” was that Henry Hudson attempted to sail across the “top of the world”, on a wooden boat with only 11 other people onboard and powered only by the wind, an excursion that Shorto comments is “pure madness” (p. […]
Island at the Center of the World by Russel Shorto reveals the history of Manhattan, the detailed and personal accounts of the figures, especially the Dutch, that would transform the history, culture, and ideology of America. In the prologue and epilogue, Russel Shorto explains his desire to tell the tale of Manhattan in a cohesive […]
European arrogance and technology determined the future of Native Americans in the New World. American history paints a picture of the bravery of pioneers crossing the Atlantic Ocean, exploring foreign lands, and taming “barbaric peoples”. Somewhere in the midst of it all, we briefly acknowledge that we decimated and displaced these people. A couple of […]
