A gripping narrative of New Netherland a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan that transforms our understanding of early America. 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. Russell Shorto draws on this...
A gripping narrative of New Netherland a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan that transforms our understanding of early...
Sixteen years after Rene 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...
Sixteen years after Rene Descartes' death in Stockholm in 1650, a pious French ambassador exhumed the remains of the controversial philosopher to t...
Russell Shorto's work has been praised as "first-rate intellectual history" (Wall Street Journal), "literary alchemy" (Chicago Tribune) and simply "astonishing" (New York Times).
In his epic new book, Russell Shorto takes us back to the founding of the American nation, drawing on diaries, letters and autobiographies to flesh out six lives that cast the era in a fresh new light. They include an African man who freed himself and his family from slavery, a rebellious young woman who abandoned her abusive husband to chart her own course and a certain Mr....
Russell Shorto's work has been praised as "first-rate intellectual history" (Wall Street Journal), "literary alchemy" (Chicago Tribune...
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...
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 Cent...
