Customer Reviews

Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652-1664

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Finally, a look at the other 17th century Dutch city on the Hudson. With the recent glut of books on the history of New York City (which, personally, I can't get enough of), it is refreshing to take a break and read about the history of the state's capitol, Albany--Beverwijck, as it was known way back when. In Janny Venema's "Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652-1664", Albany's Dutch years are finally given their just due. Venema's extensive research is evident in just about every paragraph, and is conveyed in a way that most historians strive: fluidly, logically, and at a modest pace. This 500+ page book reads remarkably quickly, much to the author's credit.

Many of the issues and personalities that shaped the development of New Amsterdam are echoed here: skirmishes with the natives; desperate moments when it seemed the place would implode; the ubiquitous Peter Stuyvesant; struggles with vice, etc. But what I found surprising is Venema's theme that Beverwijck was just as tolerant of races, just as much a springboard of modern America's ethics as was New Amesterdam. The Brooklyn guy inside me bristled at first, but the evidence is overwhelming.

I hope others will pick up this study, as it provides an indispensible look at a time and place that has been unnecessarily overlooked.

This book is the definite book on the colony of Beverwijck, which would later become Albany in New York State. Veneme pays great detail to pretty much all the aspects of life in this frontier town. The dress, indian relations, healthcare, poor care, trade, important people. It gives a very good insight into how life was lived in the 17th century in both Holland and New Netherlands.

the detail and conciseness is also what is the matter with this book. It's good to use as reference and to look for things mentioned before, but because of the many details it is not always easy to get an overall view. The research done was great (it's a dissertation) but makes it at times unreadable. There are for example over 120 pages of notes in the back of the book.

It's a very good example of total-history, very interesting to get a good view of life in that age, but not something you would pleasantly read.

Janny Venema gives her readers a close and rewarding look at Dutch life in early America. Her description of Beverwijck's founding and development offers important glimpses of that village's social, economic, political, and religious life. Her research is deep, her writing clear, and her findings valuable. This is among the very best of early American town studies.

I did not keep this book but took it to a highly eclectic bookseller. Not that I didn't like it but that I just needed to sell some books one month. He said, "This is arcane!!" I said, "I think it is her PhD thesis." There's my review since I am not a Dutch speaker or scholar but just someone who fell in love with the story because of Russell Shorto's account, "Island at the Center of the Earth." I'd say this is a worthy read for anyone who lives in or loves Albany, NY and wants to know its foundational history. The quick version is that the Dutch needed money to fight with Spain and beaver furs and pelts were worth a fortune and where Albany is, the Dutch erected Fort Orange and traded for beaver nearly to extinction. The "new world" was the resource after the population in Russia had been decimated by the same activity. As "Beaver Village" developed, many principles of government came into use that expressed Iroquois values as well as ideas from the Netherlands, which was forced toward democracy by its combination of water emergencies and regional independence. Those elements really became the paradigm we live with now as our ideal. Now I say this without being a perfect scholar of the matter, just a dabbler, so someone else may correct me and I won't take offense. This is what makes so compelling reading the Dutch adventures into what we now call New York State (because the British vanquished the Dutch and named it all after the Duke of York). Still, it was never a frontier suited for imperial governance and the British, we know, didn't keep it long. Janny Venema is a fine scholar and whether this work is arcane or for your coffee table maybe depends on where you live and what intrigues you personally. Without question, it is a finely detailed and thoroughly presented accounting of how things were in the middle 1600s. ps, my eclectic bookseller bought it. In Oregon.

This book contains a huge amount of information concerning the Dutch villages that preceeded Albany, NY. Unfortunately, the author repeats the same information several times in different chapters making the reading a bit confusing. Additionally, the heavy use of Dutch words requires a lot of reference to the glossary.

This is a good resource, but definitely not a casual read.

This is an excellent book. Extremely well researched. It tells how the present city of Albany in Upstate NY, got started. It's first Dutch inhabitants, the first settlers and all the information that has been gathered recently by translating the old documents that were lingering in the basements of NY State capitol buildings.
It's fun to read what people did as professions, their early laws, the emancipation of women and even their clothes.
Highly recommended for any history buff.

As other reviewers commented, it is not written in novel/story form, but if you are looking for well-researched, accurate info & detail, this is full of interesting insights about life in Beverwijck. True, some things are repeated in several places, but I didn't find it a distraction but rather a reminder in a new context.