In this wide-ranging volume, the Rosenblatts bring together a collection of essays that explore the Dutch colony of New Netherland and its influence on the English colony that followed it. The chapters consider a variety of topics ranging from seventeenth century Dutch religious practices to twenty-first century American legal debates. The book is thus as diverse and rambunctious as the colony it examines.

In 1609, the Dutch East India Company sent Henry Hudson on a voyage that took him from Cape Cod to the Chesapeake Bay and, eventually, up the river that now bears his name. After years of private investors sponsoring expeditions to the region, the Dutch government granted a monopoly to the West India Company in 1621, giving it exclusive jurisdiction over all trade and colonial settlement in the Atlantic and Caribbean (leaving the Pacific to the East India Company). Part of the monopoly included territory that became New Netherland, which ran roughly from the Delaware River to the Connecticut River. In 1624–25, the Company established commercial forts throughout the region, from Delaware Bay, to New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan, to Fort Orange (Albany). For years these settlements remained small commercial outposts inhabited mainly by Dutch traders and free and enslaved African Americans. Inhabitants fought often with Indians and struggled to secure New Netherland's borders against rival colonies, especially those in New England. But these conditions started to change under Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived in New Amsterdam as the colony's director general in 1647. His diplomatic efforts established defensible boundaries, and ended many long-standing conflicts with Indians in the region. Immigrants poured into New Netherland, and the European population more than doubled to approximately 9,000 people, a diverse group that included Dutch, Finns, Swedes, and Walloons (French-speaking Protestants from the Low Countries). These inhabitants were Lutheran, Quaker, Reformed, and Independent.

A small group of Portuguese-speaking Sephardic Jews also arrived from Brazil. This combination of commercial zeal and an expanding population created a boisterous, unruly colony. In the book's Introduction, the Rosenblatts correctly point out that “[m]uch of the contemporary writing about New Netherland shows the place to be rife with drunkenness, brawling, and adultery—truly disorderly” (7). Dutch control, however, came to an abrupt end. After years of commercial competition between England and the Netherlands, King Charles II of England issued a patent to his brother James, duke of York, in early 1664. The patent included the entire territory of New Netherland. Eager to assert his claims, James authorized a fleet to sail to New Amsterdam, and in August 1664 Stuyvesant surrendered the colony of New Netherland, which the duke renamed New York.

This book tells the story of New Netherland in thirteen chapters, each offering a vivid snapshot of a particular aspect of the colony and some of the effects it had on New York. Eight chapters appear here for the first time and five have appeared in different forms elsewhere, either as published pieces or as conference papers. Bringing all of this work together allows the reader to see how Dutch practices continued to echo long after 1664. Written by scholars of many disciplines, the chapters cover such a broad range of topics that it is impossible to summarize each adequately in a brief review. Historians, archeologists, independent scholars, lawyers, and anthropologists all bring their expertise to bear on the legacy of Dutch New York. The chapters range from a description of the Stadt Huys (City Hall) and archeological digs of its location in lower Manhattan, to similarities between the Dutch Act of Abjuration (1581) and the Declaration of Independence; from the purchase of Manhattan Island from the Munsee Indians and what it suggests about European and Native concepts of land use, to a 1647 trial of two defendants for læsæ maiestatis (lèse-majesté); from the Dutch practice of arbitration and lessons it offers, to present debates over alternative dispute resolution, to attempts by enslaved African-Americans to baptize their children. These essays are supplemented by more than seventy-five images—many in full, rich color—that include reproductions of seventeenth century maps and drawings as well more recent depictions of life in New Netherland. The images and essays allow readers to see the subject from many different angles. As William J. vanden Heuvel puts it in the book's Foreword, the broad-ranging chapters “surround the reader with information, facts, anecdotes, and graphic word pictures” (xxiii).

Despite its breadth of scholarly approaches, the book does not always capture the wider context of this particular colony. For example, the West India Company did not govern only New Netherland. At various times between 1621 and 1664, the Company also governed Luanda (in present-day Angola), Elmina Castle in Ghana, Brazil (which the Company renamed New Holland), Bonaire, Aruba, and Curaçao. As a result, the same Company had jurisdiction over many colonies at the same time. Governors such as Stuyvesant arrived in New Netherland only after serving the Company elsewhere. Stuyvesant had been a commissary and military commander on Curaçao, losing his leg in a battle with the Spanish then returning to Amsterdam before being reassigned to New Netherland. Examining the period through a wider lens may have allowed us to see the broader legal framework that the West India Company developed to administer its possessions in North America and elsewhere. But what the book may lack in geographic range it offers in the breadth of themes and topics. Moreover, every chapter displays a conscientious regard for archival sources which, together with the images, offer a book that anyone interested in the history of New Netherland or New York will find useful.