![]() ![]() “Pirates, prostitutes, smugglers, and business sharks held sway,” he notes. By the time New Amsterdam had been established, more as a business settlement of the West India Company than as a colony, its babel of nationalities were seeking balance between chaos and order, liberty and oppression. Not the least part of that tumult was Dutch political and legal progressivism, “their matter-of-fact acceptance of foreignness, of religious differences, of odd sorts.” Tolerance, in a word, though Shorto ( Saints and Madmen, 1999, etc.) is quick to point out that that meant “putting up with” rather than celebrating diversity. It’s good to remember, the author suggests, that the early 17th century was the age of Shakespeare, Descartes, Vermeer, and Bacon, a time of change and tumult. The all-but-forgotten origins of Manhattan, told with humor and an acute eye for primary sources. ![]()
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