Dennis J. Maika will present a talk entitled “New York Was Always a Global City: Why Seventeenth-Century New Amsterdam Matters Today” at 1:30 p.m. on November 19, 2011 (Saturday) at 3 West 29th Street, NYC (at Marble Church). The talk will be followed by a preview of the Center’s new website.

The driving force behind America’s founding was the expansion of trade and commerce. In those formative years of the 17th century Atlantic World, New Amsterdam was at the center of that trade. Dr. Maika will identify key elements that made early New Amsterdam (New York) a global city and offer observations about its economy, government and society that made New York City’s early history especially relevant today.

Dennis J. Maika is the 2102 Senior Scholar in Residence at the New Netherland Research Center in Albany. He received his Ph.D. in History from New York University- his dissertation was awarded the Hendricks Manuscript Prize. He is a Fellow of the Holland Society of New York, the New Netherland Institute, and the New York Academy of History. Dr. Maika participated in the International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University. As a historian of colonial New York, he has served as a consultant for local history and education projects and has written numerous articles and papers. Dr. Maika is currently working on a book about Dutch and English merchants in seventeenth-century Manhattan.

The event is free, but reservations are required. For reservations, please email [email protected] or call (212) 799-4203. Leave your name, phone number or email and the number of reservations you require.