Join historian and author Alan Mikhail as he presents his new book
The exceptional tale of an unorthodox, seventeenth–century married couple whose rags-to-riches story fundamentally rewrites our knowledge of American history at its very beginnings.
May 13, 2026
6:30pm - 8:00pm
A man thought to be Muslim from Morocco and a German barmaid are hardly the image we have of America’s founders. In Newcomers, Alan Mikhail upends the traditional story of American beginnings through the tale of Anthony “the Turk” and Grietje Reyniers. Married in Amsterdam, they arrived in 1630s Dutch New Amsterdam, hoping to forge a new life.
Alan Mikhail is the Chace Family Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of six books that have been translated into ten languages.
Details will follow.
Alan will be joined in conversation with Susanah Shaw Romney.
Susanah Romney is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at NYU. She teaches courses on Atlantic history, early America, and Women and Gender. She earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University and her BA at the University of California Santa Cruz. She is the author of New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America, which was the winner of the Jamestown Prize, the Hendricks Award, and the First Book Prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.
The Event will be held in collaboration with and at the New Netherland Club of New York
Alan Mikhail is the Chace Family Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of six books that have been translated into ten languages.
His work has helped to establish the field of Middle East environmental history, positioned the Ottoman Empire at the center of global early modern history, and creatively scrutinized the place of the archive in the making of past and present.
Susanah Romney is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at NYU. She teaches courses on Atlantic history, early America, and Women and Gender. She earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University and her BA at the University of California Santa Cruz. She is the author of New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America, which was the winner of the Jamestown Prize, the Hendricks Award, and the First Book Prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians
