Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.
The first volume of the new book series 400 Years of New York History: A Pictorial Guide (Pictorial History Press, 2020) by Sasha Vosk is a one-of-a-kind illustrated guide that offers readers an opportunity to view New York City’s history in a manner that has not been possible until now with the benefit of 21st century art technology. This volume covers the period of New Amsterdam, when the Dutch controlled the city as part of their colony of New Netherland.
The book represents the first of several cities planned for the Vosk Time Travel Series.
Sasha Vosk is an expert in photo-realistic imagery with over 30 years of experience. He created this book for everyone who wants to know much more about New York’s history than meets the eye on the streets of Manhattan.
Book Purchases made through this Amazon link support the New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State. Books noticed on the New York Almanack have been provided by their publishers.
We are used to thinking of American beginnings as involving thirteen English Colonies. To thinking of American History as an English root on to which over time, the cultures of many other nations were grafted to create a new species of society that has become a multi-ethnic model for progressive societies around the world. But that isn’t true.
To think of the original thirteen English colonies is to ignore another colony — the one centered on Manhattan, which predated New York, and whose history was all but erased when the English took it over. (Manhattan under the Dutch) This island would become the first multi-ethnic, upwardly mobile society on America’s shores. A prototype of the kind of society that would be duplicated throughout the country, and around the world. If what made America great was its ingenious openness to different cultures, then the small triangle of land at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is the New World birthplace of that idea. The spot where it first took shape. …Manhattan is where America began.
The English took over the Dutch colony in 1664 and renamed it New York. When the time came to memorialize national origin, the English pilgrims and Puritans of New England provided a better model. The pilgrim story was simpler. Less messy, and had fewer pirates and prostitutes to explain away. It was easy enough to overlook the fact that the Puritans flight to American shores to escape religious persecution, let them, once established, to institute a brutally intolerant regime. A grim, theocratic monoculture, about as far removed as one can imagine from what the country was to be become.
Russell Shorto,
Island at the Center of the World.