New Netherland Connections

“An excellent book that is narrowly focused with wide implications.” — Itinerario

“An innovative and important addition to the thriving field of New Netherland studies, as well as to the study of early modern European colonization.” — William & Mary Quarterly

“Romney offers a complex, refreshing view of the Dutch Atlantic world, constituting a much-needed intervention in the field of New Netherland studies.” — CHOICE

“An important book in demonstrating how early modern empires were built and functioned and how inhabitants from all social ranks on both sides of the Atlantic negotiated and made sense of their place within empire.” — de Halve Maen

“[Romney] has given historians a new way of conceptualizing and understanding Atlantic world empires.” — American Historical Review

“Critically engages Dutch and American historiographies of colonization while presenting a suggestive new approach for understanding empires as social networks based in intimacy.” — The Journal of American History

“Susannah Shaw Romney’s excellent book is a salutary reminder that the women and men of New Netherland were part of a powerful 17th-century Dutch mercantile network that encircled the globe, and they deserve to be taken seriously.” — Saint Nicholas Society of New York

“Clearly shows the degree to which intimate networks structured the Dutch Atlantic, and provided a model for other scholars of early modern empire to emulate.” — New Jersey Studies

“How do you build an empire? Not with armies and might alone; not just with financial clout, or guile, or aggression. As Romney so elegantly demonstrates, the Dutch empire was built and maintained by individuals. Families, friends, and colleagues stitched together 'intimate networks' that stretched across the globe and became the ground-level means by which the colony of New Netherland operated.” — Russell Shorto, author of Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City

“Demonstrating the significance of family ties and social bonds within and between Dutch, Native, and African communities, New Netherland Connections transcends the study of a single mid-Atlantic region and gives us an intimate social history of empire.” — Simon Middleton, University of Sheffield