Historian Peter Van Cleave chats with NNI’s Steve McErleane and Russell Shorto about nineteenth-century scholar Francis Adrian van der Kemp and Van der Kemp’s much-maligned attempt to translate the records of New Netherland ca. 1820, with Van Cleave offering a novel response to Van der Kemp’s critics. In many ways a bridge between the 18th- and 19th-century worlds, Van der Kemp’s life as a religious dissident and learned scholar help illuminate the complexities of the age. Other topics include New York’s tumultuous political climate, the widespread ignorance of the history of New Netherland, and the seemingly impenetrable satire of Washington Irving.