I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

I just adore New York, would love to visit one day… though that probably won’t happen as I am very hesitant to ever travel to the US… for many reasons. So I am delighted with these books that allow me to travel to this place without all the fuss and stress. And this one especially seemed wonderful as it showcases 400 years of New York!

This book tells us about the history of New York/New Amsterdam. How it looked before everything was demolished and chopped away. Who lived there first. Plans for the land. Who got at certain places first. What important men did all sorts of things. Seeing the land transform from grass and nature to houses. And so much more. The book isn’t long but it is packed! It was so interesting to read. I have read quite a few books about New York/New Amsterdam in my time and while most do mention some history, it is never that much. Most of the books focus on New York of now. So I was very invested in reading about what was before.

While I know that the Dutch had a big hand in making New York/New Amsterdam, it did feel weird to see Dutch names in an English book. Haha. My head was so confused. 😛

There are plenty of photographs/illustrations/reconstructions. While a few were pretty nice… quite a few felt like a Photoshop gone wrong or where someone had a great background and randomly taped people and animals to it.. and I just couldn’t help but laugh. See below for 3 of my favourite of such moments.

The text however, wasn’t easy to read on my ARC version. It was blurry and the font was a bit odd, some letters had extra things on it making it even harder to read. I did manage to read it, but my eyes and head aren’t thanking me for that. Same goes for the text on the art, the font colour often just didn’t work. Maybe it works in physical, but it definitely didn’t work right for the ebook I got.

All in all, I had fun reading this. It was quite an interesting read. And while unintentional (I hope) the art made me laugh and that was just what I needed after a busy busy day.