Russell Shorto
speaker
238 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 9 Jun
Russell Shorto’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So you have that and you have this mix of people and you have this new economic system at work.
He didn't know how it worked or why it worked, but he wanted it.
And that's the key to what ultimately happened.
Because he comes to decide that what he needs is not just the geography, not just this rock sitting in the harbor.
He needs the secret sauce that is in the minds of this mixed community.
I call this community Dutch, but famously at one point there's 18 languages being spoken.
So it's this hurly-burly kind of place.
He doesn't get it, but he wants to keep that.
He wants to preserve it.
So he doesn't want to open fire.
He wants to appease.
Yeah, it was unusual in Spain, in France, in England.
Intolerance was official policy.
For example, English travelers visiting Amsterdam would remark on seeing people with turbans and different skin color.
This was just...
really strange at the time and uh and yet that's what uh the dutch realized there was something there and they didn't do this out of uh you know it wasn't like celebrating diversity or anything like that they made money off it it was practical it was pragmatic and it was also the case that they were you know they're this tiny nation which is uh um uh uh
There's no hills.
There's no mountains.
There's no natural barriers.
People from elsewhere, when they were fleeing religious war and things, they came there and they settled.
Showing 121–140 of 238 · page 7 of 12
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