Russell Shorto: The Island at the Centre of the World

Reviewed by PETER WELLS

This book's subtitle is The untold story of Dutch Manhattan and the founding of New York - in case you were wondering where the centre of the world may be. In one way, this subtitle illustrates this book's virtues - and flaws.

It is a highly informative history written in vivid journalese, about an obscured history of one of the world's most fascinating cities. But this history is strained through an American consciousness that, at times, seems simultaneously naive and arrogant.

The plot is simple. Before the English arrived to claim that they had "created" America, the Dutch had taken over Manhattan.

Shorto's thesis is that the English created a grim theocracy in their areas of influence not unlike that of the mullahs. The Dutch, however, created a tolerant, multilayered society made up of many different races.

He implies that the earlier Dutch incarnation of New York is more in line with contemporary New York City.

His book is based on historical evidence painstakingly researched by other people. Shorto places the founding of New York at the fulcrum (one of his favourite words) of global politics at the time.

The Dutch and the English were fighting for control of the trade routes of the world. But since we are talking of the 17th century, the English were stymied by their civil war. The Dutch, by contrast, had "the one country where there was freedom of speculation" (Bertrand Russell).

Shorto traces Manhattan's intellectual roots back to the great thinkers associated with the Enlightenment - Descartes, Gropius, Galileo. He denies that Locke (English) was the source of American ideals of liberty and freedom. He "reinvents" Manhattan as a kind of echo of Dutch tolerance.

All great powers reinvent themselves, draping themselves in antiquity, to better disguise the crude mechanisms of power with which they control the world. As a New Zealander, I couldn't help but read Shorto's account of the early Dutch encounters with the Indians with a certain suspension of disbelief.

We are trained to regard "early contact" with a more intense scrutiny. But for those readers looking for information on early Manhattan, this is a good read. It flows well, has many vivid incidents cherrypicked for the reader's delight.

Shorto deepens our understanding of how global politics impinged on the creation of New York City. But I couldn't help but feel there was a curiously telling incident in the very first European occupation of Manhattan.

The Dutch, threatened by violence from local warring Indians, withdrew to the island of Manhattan, to create a kind of armed citadel from which they could gaze out at a suddenly foreign and challenging world.

In some ways it seems a telling metaphor for the current problems of the United States, and New York City itself.

Random House, $59.95

* Peter Wells is an Auckland writer and film-maker.