Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America

by Russell Shorto Narrated by Russell Shorto

Overview

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025

The author of The Island at the Center of the World offers up a thrilling narrative of how New York-that brash, bold, archetypal city-came to be.

In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland's canny director general.

Bristling with vibrant characters, Taking Manhattan reveals the founding of New York to be an invention, the result of creative negotiations that would blend the multiethnic, capitalistic society of New Amsterdam with the power of the rising English empire. But the birth of what might be termed the first modern city is also a story of the brutal dispossession of Native Americans and of the roots of American slavery. The book draws from newly translated materials and illuminates neglected histories-of religious refugees, Indigenous tribes, and free and enslaved Africans.

Taking Manhattan tells the riveting story of the birth of New York City as a center of capitalism and pluralism, a foundation from which America would rise. It also shows how the paradox of New York's origins-boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement-reflects America's promise and failure to this day. Russell Shorto, whose work has been described as “astonishing” (New York Times) and “literary alchemy” (Chicago Tribune), has once again mined archival sources to offer a vibrant tale and a fresh and trenchant argument about American beginnings.

“Shorto's revelatory sequel to The Island at the Center of the World ... Readers will be wowed.”-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Editorial Reviews

New World - Edward Short

"Here is the whirligig of history, which Shorto captures vividly in this well-researched, well-written, sprightly book. Anyone interested in what leads to or can forestall wars of empire will find Taking Manhattan a rewarding, instructive read."

Douglas Brinkley

"Nobody understands the origins of New York City better than historian Russell Shorto. Taking Manhattan brilliantly illuminates how a seventeenth century Dutch enclave of 1,500 residents, on acreage swindled from Native Americans, rose to become the most cosmopolitan New World port in the 17th century and beyond. Shorto, a detail-driven scholar, seamlessly weaves together secondary literature with newly translated Dutch documents to astonishing effect. This narrative is the historiographical Rosetta Stone of how New York City was born. With keen exactitude, Shorto explains how the Atlantic Slave Trade was an essential component of the building of New York City. As both a work of American and European history Taking Manhattan soars!"

Christian Science Monitor

"Fascinating . . . [Shorto's] vivid account emphasizes New York’s roots in pluralism and a capitalist ethos while also tracing the roles of slavery and the dispossession of Native Americans in the city’s founding."

Tiya Miles

"A riveting account of the men and women of Indigenous, Dutch, African, Jewish, and English descent who populated this thriving seventeenth-century port. Filled with new knowledge, eloquent prose, and international intrigue, Russell Shorto’s history will take your breath away."

Fareed Zakaria

"In this fascinating book, Russell Shorto unravels the DNA inside New York. I thought I knew New York, but it opened my eyes to the city and its rich history."

Times Literary Supplement - Rebecca Fraser

"Shorto is earnest, humorous, intellectual, intense and high-minded. . . Any reader curious about New York, and the unique energy and warmth of its inhabitants, will be fascinated by Russell Shorto’s highly enjoyable reconstruction of Manhattan Island’s transition to English rule."

Stacy Schiff

"New Amsterdam—pluralistic, capitalistic, pulsing with energy—has survived. Best of all, Russell Shorto himself feels everywhere present in these spirited, revelatory pages."

Wall Street Journal - D.G. Hart

"Mr. Shorto... [tells] backstories in vivid and sometimes creative detail. "

New York Times - Jacob Goldstein

"Russell Shorto tells the story beautifully, and makes a compelling case for its enduring importance."

Kevin Baker

"Taking Manhattan picks up where The Island at the Center of the World leaves off. Shorto’s masterful narrative brings the much-neglected stories of Native Americans and African Americans into a heady stew that is our real founding story."

The New Yorker

"This vivid history chronicles England’s “taking” of New Amsterdam from the Dutch, in 1664. Shorto, however, argues that it was the Dutch, not the English, who sowed the seeds of the multiethnic, religiously tolerant, and unabashedly capitalistic metropolis that would emerge as New York. "

Kenneth T. Jackson

"More than any other person, Russell Shorto rescued New Amsterdam from historic obscurity. Shorto is a great researcher and a persuasive storyteller."

APRIL 2025 - AudioFile

Russell Shorto is an author who can narrate his audiobooks as effectively as any professional. In voice, Shorto is personable, assured, and exact--much like his narratives. This history of the English acquisition of Dutch New Amsterdam follows Shorto's bestselling ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD, which covered the Dutch settlement of Manhattan. Once again, Shorto emphasizes political and military history, as well as the broad demographic of people who, from the first, have made New York a world center. Shorto is a steady, undramatic narrator. But this is not a high-action history. The Dutch gave up the settlement without a shot fired but preserved their property, trade system, and self-governance. The outcome is a lesson in wise diplomacy. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2025-02-15
Making a metropolis.

Shorto, whoseThe Island at the Center of the World stands as one of the seminal books about early New York, returns to the subject with a masterful account of the international struggle for control of 17th-century Manhattan, a fascinating, often overlooked saga. After taking the island from Indigenous peoples in 1626—an “injustice,” he notes, that resonates 400 years later—the Dutch built a polyglot commercial hub. Chapters on figures like Dorothea Angola, a Black landowner skilled at working the levers of local government, provide a sense of the settlement’s varied populace. The nascent city’s unforgivable “life as a slaving port” ramped up in 1659, with the arrival of a ship carrying enslaved African children. But Dutch dominion was brief, and it’s the “second taking of Manhattan” that garners most of Shorto’s attention. In 1664, English frigates appeared offshore, intent on seizing control. Unprepared for military battle, the Dutch surrendered after tense, vividly depicted negotiations. Named for England’s Duke of York, the city eventually became the “pluralistic and capitalistic” one we know today due in part to the melding of Dutch and English practices—some of which remain shocking. The Duke of York’s title, abbreviated as DY, was branded on the bodies of enslaved people, and Manhattan under English control became “a major hub of the slave trade.” Never losing sight of cultural influences still felt in the 21st century, Shorto crafts a narrative packed with intrigue and fascinating subplots, reproducing pages of decoded English military cipher and sizing up the map that might’ve been. Under one 1660s royal decree, Connecticut was briefly “a continentwide monstrosity” that included today’s New York and reached “the South Sea,” as the Pacific Ocean was then called.

A bracing narrative of the international standoff that birthed America’s biggest city.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940193680970
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/04/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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