The Island at the Center of the World Quotes

“Instead, power went to those who made things happen: businessmen and local magistrates. Over time, human nature being what it is, these men would create a kind of nobility, sometimes even buying titles from cash-poor foreigners, but this in itself underscores the point. Upward mobility was part of the Dutch character: if you worked hard and were smart, you rose in stature. Today that is a byword of a healthy society; in the seventeenth century it was weird.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

“Manhattan is where America began.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“the colony, enough time to impress the settlers with his abilities, and then returned to Europe; now he was coming back. Not long after his ship, the Sea-Mew, passed through the narrows between Staten Eylandt”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“This book tells the story of that moment in time. It is a story of high adventure set during the age of exploration—when Francis Drake, Henry Hudson, and Captain John Smith were expanding the boundaries of the world, and Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Galileo, Descartes, Mercator, Vermeer, Harvey, and Bacon were revolutionizing human thought and expression.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“It was possible, as far as they knew, that the western shore, which in fifty years’ time would be christened New Jersey, was in fact the backdoor of China, that India, with its steamy profusion of gods and curries, lay just beyond those bluffs.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“As to the Dutch, he despised them. For that”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“Henry Hudson was in his forties when he stepped into the light of history, a seasoned mariner, a man with a strong and resourceful wife and three sons, a man born and raised not only to the sea but to the quest for a northern passage to Asia, who, weaned from infancy on the legends of his predecessors, probably couldn't help but be obsessed by it.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

“It was the Dutch of this era who invented the idea of the home as a personal, intimate space; one might say they invented coziness.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“The region was the scene of vivid, hot, bloody warfare between the decaying Spanish empire and its breakaway rival. Sugar, salt, dyewood, tobacco, horses, copper—the ways to exploit the Caribbean and coastal South America were intoxicating in their variety, and while the Dutch were eager to capitalize on the weakness of Spain’s grip on the region, the Spanish were unwilling to give up such a stream of wealth easily. Besides opening a new window onto the birth of Manhattan, the massive trove of Dutch documents being translated by Dr. Charles Gehring in the New York State Library contains hundreds of pages detailing Stuyvesant’s time in the Caribbean and opens other windows onto the unrelentingly grim business of wringing profits out of slaves, Indians, and the land, while simultaneously battling other European colonizers.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“a colorful collection of losers and scalawags, inconsequential and meandering, waiting around for the winds of fate to blow them off the map.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was a product of Amsterdam’s vigorous Jewish community. To this day, Amsterdammers’ proud slang term for their city is Mokum, the centuries-old Jewish name for it. (For that matter, Amsterdam slang for “see you later” is the Yiddishism de mazzel.)”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“Upward mobility was part of the Dutch character: if you worked hard and were smart, you rose in stature. Today that is a byword of a healthy society; in the seventeenth century it was weird.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

“The first Manhattanites didn't arrive with lofty ideals. They came--whether as farmer, tanner, prostitute, wheelwright, barmaid, brewer, or trader--because there was a hope for a better life. There was a distinct messiness to the place they created. But it was very real, and in a way, very modern.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

“Many people--whether they live in the heartland or on Fifth Avenue--like to think of New York City as so wild and extreme in its cultural fusion that it's an anomaly in the United States, almost a foreign entity. This book offers an alternative view: that beneath the level of myth and politics and high ideals, down where real people live and interact, Manhattan is where America began.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

“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.”
― Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America