On February 2, 1653, New Amsterdam was incorporated. What a great story.

Huh? Does it lack the steamy drama we have come to demand? Even if we know, from the song Istanbul or elsewhere, that New Amsterdam was later renamed New York City which, if you like big cities, remains one of civilization’s jewels? Well, let me try to defend this admittedly un-bodice-ripper-like choice of theme.

I have commented before on the stunning military, economic and cultural imbalance between Western Europe and the rest of the world by 1500 that led a speck of land like the Netherlands become a global empire. (No offense to the Dutch; I actually mean it as a compliment. But nobody looking at the Netherlands and India in 1450 would have thought the former would start picking off bits of the latter within two centuries including fighting Portugal for them.) But there’s more, or rather, there’s a side to the story that helps explain why the imbalance was so enormous. And it’s precisely the incorporation of municipalities with genuine legal rights and "liberties" in places like England and the Netherlands.

New Amsterdam itself was founded as a political entity, unsurprisingly, in 1625. It was the seat of the colonial government of New Netherland. But the "factorij" outside the fort, though protected by and closely associated with it, was a private venture. As were earlier Dutch ventures including in what would later be Albany and, not coincidentally, the various early English colonies from Massachusetts Bay to Jamestown. Indeed, New Netherland itself was originally a private venture of a sort Emperors and Tsars would not tolerate or keep their plundering hands off if they prospered.

By the way, you’ve all heard of the infamous purchase of Manhattan for 60 guilders or 24 Spanish dollars from a Lenape Indian chief who supposedly did not know what the cunning Europeans were up to. It casts a rather different light on that hackneyed tale of naivety and perfidy to learn that at the time the island was apparently mostly in the hands of a rival band. So chief Seyseys shrewdly swindled the Dutch by selling them someone else’s land.)

It was still a small settlement, under 300 people in the 1640s. Life was hard and survival uncertain. But people do things the way they think proper even in adversity, and hence in 1653 New Amsterdam became a city with, crucially, municipal rights. Not just duties. Not paper promises. Real genuine legal guarantees of their right to make decisions and live with the consequences without sudden arbitrary deprivation. (Not entirely coincidentally, the first Jews seem to have arrived in 1654.) Two years later, on September 15, 1655, a massive Indian attack destroyed farms and killed around 100 people while carrying off another 150. But the colony rebounded.

After a bunch of rhubarb New Amsterdam of course wound up in the hands of the English and later the Americans. But in the big picture there is far more similarity than difference in how the Dutch and English treated their citizens and their political and economic rights, namely with respect. And it gave their nations, and their settlements, a dynamism not found elsewhere.

Had New Amsterdam been New Moscow, New Teheran or New Beijing we would not be having this discussion. Which is a major reason it wasn’t.

"Action is eloquence." William Shakespeare (Volumnia in Coriolanus; in context it is not entirely good advice)

Serendipity is a wonderful word. And we owe it to the eccentric Horace Walpole who coined it in a letter on January 28 of 1754. It is a hard word to translate, perhaps because it speaks to an unexpected and obscure but encouraging facet of reality.

Serendipity loosely means a fortunate discovery. Walpole himself, the reviver of Gothic architecture in his Strawberry Hill House and practitioner of Gothic writing in The Castle of Otranto, derived his neologism it from a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, in which the heroes were, Walpole wrote, "always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of". But it doesn’t just mean blind luck.

It means that when people are engaged in a worthy quest, in a suitably hopeful frame of mind, they often come across something even better than they were seeking. It reminds me of a maxim I acquired from an in-law’s publisher (an example, I think, of serendipity in that I was not expecting to gain wisdom at the book launch where it happened) that in life you must be ready to be lucky.

It sounds silly, perhaps. But it depends on the important truth that, except at the extremes, the difference between lucky and unlucky people is far less the mix of good, bad and ugly that fate sends them but their alertness to the good things. "Unlucky" people often fail to notice breaks they aren’t expecting.

In my view serendipity goes further still. It speaks to a certain beneficial substructure to a universe that often seems on the surface to present precisely the paradoxical mix of indifference and hostility that H.P. Lovecraft devoted himself to depicting graphically. And it justifies a joke that comes from the unlikely and superficially undesirable source known as Woody Allen, that life is like two old ladies discussing the food in their retirement residence.

It’s awful, says one, bland, pasty, salty and lukewarm, really just horrible. Yes, sighs the other, and such small portions too.

There really is something good here, although to find it we often need that elusive and surprising quality given such an oddly fitting name by Walpole. Serendipity. It rolls off the tongue and, I hope, into your life.

In my latest National Post column I condemn the whole concept of food trends and "cutting-edge flavours" in favour of the retrograde notion of liking things that taste good.

"The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be." British author Louis de Bernières, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe & Mail August 27, 2009

In my latest National Post column I argue that Justin Trudeau's recent refusal to answer an English question in English "since we're in Quebec" is neither an innocent mistake nor a harmless reflex.

With the 100th anniversary of Canada's great victory at Vimy Ridge fast approaching, I'm delighted to announce that the book version of my documentary The Great War Remembered is now available for purchase.

The First World War was the defining event of the 20th century, shaping the modern world in ways we still feel very strongly today. Modern technology and logistics created unprecedented slaughter, and partly as a result the long, bitter, bloody conflict undermined faith in Western civilization. But it was a necessary war and the Allies did win it, with pivotal contributions from Canada, which "found itself" in the war and especially at Vimy, not just as a nation, but as a free nation determined to defend liberty under law.

It is appropriate that we remember the costs of the war and lament the loss and the missed opportunities. But we should also remember, and celebrate, the determined spirit that stood up to aggression on behalf of a way of life well worth defending even at this terrible cost.

Order your copy today and take a timely, fresh look at an often misunderstood conflict central to the modern world.

p.s. American and international shoppers should purchase directly through Amazon.

p.p.s. We also have the Kindle version available, here.

On January 24 of 1908, in what does seem a vanished era of tranquility and earnestness, Robert Baden-Powell organized the first Boy Scout troop. But those days were not as tranquil as they seem, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are still enormously popular, and the mission of forming character is not as obsolete as some might suppose.

To begin with, Baden-Powell formed the Scouts in the wake of the (Second) Boer War, which had proved far more challenging for the British army than anticipated and which concluded less than a decade and a half before the outbreak of World War One. During the conflict then-Colonel Baden-Powell became a hero for his successful conduct of the defence of Mafeking, aided by the Mafeking Cadet Corps formed by Lord Edward Cecil.

Deeply impressed by the Corps, Baden-Powell wrote Scouting for Boys, based on his earlier Aids to Scouting, a brief guide to military scouting and wilderness survival that, he noticed, was exceptionally popular with boys. A huge success, currently the fourth best-selling book of all time, its tone might seem outdated. But the spirit of self-reliance, duty and cheerfulness it inculcated clearly helped Britain and Canada win World War I.

The scouts have changed enormously since 1908, mostly in good ways. Baden-Powell’s sister Agnes created the Girl Guides just two years later (after a group of girls showed up at the first Scout Rally in 1909 in uniform and informed Baden-Powell they were the "Girl Scouts," a commendable exhibition of initiative that evidently struck "B-P" as he is sometimes known as favourably as it does me. Agnes also created the Brownies (originally Rosebuds) for younger girls while Baden-Powell’s wife took over as president of the Girl Guides in 1920.

Among other changes, the uniform has been adapted over many decades for greater practicality as well as a not necessarily beneficial greater casualness. And at least some branches have dropped God from their pledge. But while one must I suppose move with the world, not too far or too fast. And sometimes one must stand against the world.

So it is worth reading the words of Baden-Powell, then nearly 80, at the Scouts’ 1937 World Jamboree, in the shadow of Hitler in a world in which racial prejudice was taken to be so normal one faced ostracism for not sharing it. The Scout uniform, B-P declared proudly, "hides all differences of social standing in a country and makes for equality; but, more important still, it covers differences of country and race and creed, and makes all feel that they are members with one another of the one great brotherhood".

Surely that surprisingly modern sentiment casts a different and more favourable light on the supposedly stuffy, naïve, chauvinistic and even jingoistic "stiff upper lip" tally ho chaps ambiance of Edwardian England. Just as the scouts’ methods for promoting self-reliance and cooperation simultaneously is strikingly up-to-date for something from that vanished era.

So here’s a confession. I have never read Scouting for Boys. But I think I’m the worse for it, and intend to track down a copy.