The Unreconciled Dispute Between New York and Boston

In Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America, Russell Shorto brings to life the English takeover of New Amsterdam. The city that emerged from a dramatic standoff stood in stark contrast to Boston—with one place more globally minded and another more inward-looking. Russell argues that the unreconciled differences between “the two ideological centers of the colonies” spread outward and are still with us today.

Russell is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical and senior scholar at the New Netherland Institute. He’s the bestselling author of eight books.