Book Report

I bought this book with a Barnes and Noble gift card I got for my birthday and took it to Hawaii with us so I could read it on the plane and where ever else I wanted to kill time.

There is not a lot that we know about the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. It was long believed that they were just a bunch of unruly pirates and prostitutes until the English took over the colony. But they are working on translating 30,000 pages of manuscript found in the Hague and a library in Albany. They contain court cases, letters, laws and public and personal records. They show a very civilized, tolerant and extremely diverse population of people who were living well.

Sounds pretty boring but it was a very fascinating book. It reads more like a novel than a text book and goes into detail about many of the characters who were responsible for developing Manhattan and the American way of life. The first representative government in the new world was started there for instance. A great book, if you live in New York it would be a lot of fun to know about all the places they talk about in the book.

I would recommend anyone who is interested in history or just likes learning different things to read this book.

-Shawn