Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York

by Oliver A. Rink

Overview

Holland on the Hudson traces the history of New Netherland from Henry Hudson's exploration of the region in 1609 to the surrender of the Dutch colony to an English fleet in 1664. Oliver A. Rink's approach is both narrative an analytic as he describes in detail the colony's commercial origins, its social and economic development, and the colonists' rivalry with the English in the New World.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801418662
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	07/09/1986
Series:	8/18/1999
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.06(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Oliver A. Rink is Professor of Early American History at California State University, Bakersfield.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Holland on the Hudson takes into account social, political, demographic, and economic factors in assessing the history of New Netherland. The author skillfully unravels the commercial and political intrigues back in the Netherlands that so affected life in the Dutch colony across the Atlantic. Through extensive research and methodological dexterity, moreover, Oliver Rink has produced a history of New Netherland and an example of transatlantic scholarship worthy of emulation.

Editorial Reviews

Historians of New Netherland (1609-64) have traditionally focused on the failures of the Dutch West India Company. Rink's study, however, presents a colony which, on the eve of English conquest was thriving. He contends that private Amsterdam merchants played a larger role in the colony's development than has hitherto been recognized; they successfully circumvented the company, which was an ``enfeebled giant'' from the start. In the process, Rink casts new light on trade and commerce, immigration, demography, patroonships, Anglo-Dutch rivalry, and slavery. This is a major new interpretation, frankly ``imperial and Dutch'' in perspective, buttressed by research in previously neglected sources. Highly recommended for academic libraries. Roy H. Tryon, Delaware State Archives, Dover

Library Journal

"Holland on the Hudson takes into account social, political, demographic, and economic factors in assessing the history of New Netherland. The author skillfully unravels the commercial and political intrigues back in the Netherlands that so affected life in the Dutch colony across the Atlantic. Through extensive research and methodological dexterity, moreover, Oliver Rink has produced a history of New Netherland and an example of transatlantic scholarship worthy of emulation."--New York History

"Rink's sources and his perspectives make his book an important contribution to the understanding of the Dutch experience in North America. . . . A fine piece of work."--Choice

From the Publisher