Kiliaen Van Rensselaer 1586-1643 ─ Designing a New World

This beautifully produced scholarly work (published on coated stock with numerous full-page color plates and smaller b&w illustrations) explores the life and times of van Rensselaer (1586-1643). He was a principal in the Dutch West India trading company and instrumental in the founding of New Netherland--the colony that later became New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut. Venema (New Netherland Project at New York State Education Department) suggests that this work is neither a biography nor a complete history, but rather an investigation into the context of Rensselaer's culturae and family. The aim is to shed light on the man himself as well as the origins of his ideas and the reasons he held to them so tenaciously. The book is distributed by SUNY Press. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Janny Venema is Assistant Director of the New Netherland Research Center, which is responsible for translating the official records of the Dutch colony and promoting awareness of the Dutch role in American history. She is the author of Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652–1664, also published by SUNY Press in cooperation with Uitgeverij Verloren.