“Remember that Old New York Was Once New Amsterdam: The Dutch Roots of American Pluralism” by David Dzurec, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History, The University of Scranton. It has been argued that contemporary American culture was built on a British foundation and over time that initial culture grew–with waves of immigration, principally from Europe–creating a multicultural society that became a model for progressive societies all over the world. This talk “complicates” the British foundations model arguing that it was the 17th Century Dutch colony of New Netherland rather than Puritan Massachusetts or Anglican Virginia that offered the pluralistic model for what the United States was to become.
