Colonial New York: A History

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and Accessible
Review: Michael Kammen has put together an extraordinary amount of research into a fairly readable and swiftly paced book. Tracing New York City's history from the days of the Native Americans to its transformation to a Dutch trading post through its last days as England's colony, Professor Kammen's COLONIAL NEW YORK: A HISTORY is one of the more exhaustive studies on the subject ever written.

For me, the best parts of the book center on Peter Stuyvesant (whom Professor Kammen refers to as a "loser"--which he is, in ways). His study of the struggles between Dutch and English cultures in Section 7 is among the best I've ever read. While the book tends to sag during the sections about economic growth, it makes up for it in terms of valuable information. I shouldn't even mention that here: this isn't a novel, after all. In fact, it is a treasure trove of information which was all but lost to us until Professor Kammen wrote this book.

Rocco Dormarunno, author of THE FIVE POINTS CONCLUDED, A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A Fairly Good Job
Review: This book takes up the dull tale of colonial New York. Unlike those
of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the north, and certainly unlike
Virginia and South Carolina in the South, New York has little of great
interest in its colonial background. After reading 375 pages of
Prof. Kammen's book, I can honestly say: Give me a Virginia book!
Please!

Kammen's
treatment of the religious disagreement among the various communities
in New York (Dutch, English, French) also fails to take the issue at
hand seriously. If the Dutch and the Anglicans had doctrinal
disputes, their main significance was that they prevented the advent
of "community" in New York. One might have thought a
religious society basing its interaction on common understanding of
ultimate questions _was_ "community," but for Kammen,
"community" means lowest-common-denominator social
laissez-faire. Ugh.

The last chapter, the one on the Revolution,
provides little in the way of solid chronology. One never learns who
were the men who ran the provincial congresses, when those bodies met,
what their relationship to the Sons of Liberty was, etc. In short,
this chapter is highly unsatisfactory.

Prof. Kammen's writing style
is calculated to induce drowsiness. He drains all the blood even from
the most excited confrontations. Alas, this book is virtually the
only one in its field.