Rating: 
Summary: NYC
Review: If you are looking for the history of New York City, this is the volume! Incredible detail. I pray the authors, publish Volume 2 in the near future.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointing assemblage, not a book
Review: Burrows and Wallace have assembled a sometimes interesting series of chapters on NYC in their book, but it doesn't have a coherent narrative about the city, or a point of view about where NYC has come from. It is uneven in its approach -- sometimes they are doing social history, sometimes political history, somethimes economic history (not often enough for my tastes, but ...) and sometimes something else. But it isn't about one thing, or even three things. You might think that the relationship between NYC and the rest of the U.S. would be a big theme, but they hardly get around to even mentioning that NYC -- historically, Manhattan -- had a relationship with Brooklyn, or its relationship with NY State. This blindness seems to come because they very narrowly define the scope of what they cover. It doesn't even take a effective 'Annales' approach to history -- there isn't a unified 'place' about which history could evolve. (I suspect that Broadway -- which was a feature of NYC from the first -- might have been that unified place, but maybe that book has already been written.) I get the sense that Burrows and Wallace had 20 years of notes, and this is what they rushed into print, without much editing by them or others. It doesn't work as a unified history, and I can't think it will be a useful detailed reference -- too many of the topics are addressed too briefly: if you want in-depth knowledge, I imagine you'd be better off with books giving specialized coverage.
Rating:
Summary: I love Gotham!!!!!
Review: Yes, it's a very long and heavy book...but if it was any shorter it would be terrible! New York is a very interesting place and there's lots to say about it. Well, I don't think that the authors of this book left out anything that ever happened in New York City from its creation to the year 1898. It's told more like a story than a lecture. I almost cried when it was over, it was so good...I wound up reading the bibliography and all the notes because I just didn't want to stop reading it! It definetely leaves you wanting more...let's hope there is a Gotham Part Two! Very good biographies on John Jacob Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt woven into the different chapters...did you know that the town of Green Bay was originally named Astor? Get this book now, even if you're not interested in New York! You will be glad you read it!!!
Rating: 
Summary: A great book, but...
Review: I began this book June 24 and finished it today (July 9), which is a long time for me to be reading a book, but it is full of interesting and incredible things, things I suspect many New Yorkers don't know about their city. I recommend this book, but I have a complaint: there are no footnotes. If one wants to determine the source for a statement it is practically impossible. For example, on page 828 there is a statement that Bishop Hughes boasted that Monsignor Bedini, the papal nuncio who visited in 1852, had as his mission to subjugate the American republic. This sounds pretty incredible, and so I went to the References for the section to see what the source of this statement is. 20 books are listed for the section and there is no way to determine which book supports the cited statement! The books for the section are listed alphabetically by author's name only! In the effort to make a easily read book, the authors have ignored the need for persons to be able to check on the book's accuracy. This is a real defect, and prevents me from giving the book the five stars which it would get if only interest and fascinating information contained in the book were considered.
Rating:
Summary: It weighs too much!
Review: Get the paper back edition so you can rip it in three sections and read a great book. It is too heavy to hold in one piece. Not a trace of political correctness in it. No use of the vulgar word "diversity". Just loaded with details. Ends at the turn of the ninteenth century. Gives an accurate account of why slavery was ended there, by 1827. No, slaves did not build the town. You'll see. what a town, what a book!
Rating:
Summary: A Helluva Book for a Helluva Town
Review: I am one of the fortunate few who had the privilege of taking Prof. Burrows' course on the History of New York at Brooklyn College. When I saw Gotham, I grabbed a copy and lugged it home. The books was just like the lectures I remembered - so vividly described that I was experiencing rather than reading. This book won the Pulitzer Prize last year and deserved it. Kudos, Professor. Is a PBS documentary of this excellent history too much to hope for?
Rating:
Summary: More than everything you wanted to know about New York.
Review: Gotham is like the City itself: almost too much to absorb. It may not be the book to take to the beach for a weekend (or a week), but is sure will make the time on an airplane pass quickly. In terms of form, I would have liked to see a work this massive (almost 1,500 pages and oversized, at that) be cut into two volumes. It could never be read in one sitting, so a division would make it easier to schlepp around. This is particularly so given the small typeface. But if it happened in the early centuries of the City, it is here, in meticulous detail. As a Native, I knew who J. Bronck was, and his signifigance, but it was interesting to see the origins of now common names like Delancy and Sutphin. I knew of Boss Tweed and Tammany, but had no idea the depth and breadth of their corruption, and how paradoxically, they also benefitted their constituents. The history of New York as a commercial center is well developed, as was the accuracy and falaciousness of the "New York as melting pot" truism. Obviously well researched and written with a easily readable style. Another way the book parallels the subject: Some parts will be off-putting to some people, but the book is sufficiently segmented that the reader may skip a page or a section or even a full chapter, and then pick up a very worthwhile read without feeling as if something has been missed. In this way, it is kinda like riding the Eighth-Avenue express. I cannot wait for the second volume (1900 to present)!
Rating:
Summary: A history that does justice to the losers.
Review: This book's 1200 pages and substantial weight should not daunt prospective buyers, for it is has the flow of a well-written novel and holds the reader's attention from the outset. It covers every aspect of New York's growth through nearly three centuries, the emphasis shifting from chapter to chapter from the social to the economic to the industrial to the political, yet always maintaining an easy chronological flow. Old controversies and concerns, many long forgotten, are brought to life through the authors' emphasis on roles played by individuals, and by the hundreds of short biographical sketches woven seamlessly into in the narrative. To do "Gotham" justice would require a far longer review than this, and any one of a dozen different aspects could be selected for praise. The book's most striking feature is perhaps its delineation of the extent to which ethnic and religious resentments dominated the city right until the end of the nineteenth century, emphasising that the "melting pot" was a far from popular or comfortable process. Discrimination and oppression were inherent from the foundation of Nieuw Amsterdam and the later transition from colony to free republic did little to reduce them - indeed the most virulent hatreds appear to have seethed in the middle of the nineteenth century, as entrenched WASP interests resented and resisted the growing presence and power of German and Irish immigrants. The book ends with these interests in uneasy equilibrium and with the wave of Italian and Jewish new arrivals seeking to stake their own positions, with the later in particular bringing a new dimension in social awareness and responsibility. Throughout the period covered the plight of Black Americans is perhaps the most pitiful of all and provides a terrible counterpoint to the growth of prosperity enjoyed by part at least of all other ethnic groups. Though this history is rich in rascals of theatrical wickedness such as Bosses Tweed and Croker, the most odious personalities tend to be respectable establishment figures: the philanthropist John Pintard observing during the 1832 Cholera epidemic "that the sooner "the scum of the city" was dispatched, the sooner the fever, deprived of fodder, would pass" (p.591); the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (then earning $30,000 per annum) drawing laughter and applause from his congregation during the 1870's Depression by reminding them that though man could not live by bread alone, a family could survive on bread and water - and water was free (p.1036); E.L.Godkin, editor of "The Nation" declaring during that same time of misery that "Free soup must be prohibited" (p.1031). Against so many dismal examples of intolerance, self-righteousness and greed the book's greatest strength is that it saves from obscurity the names of some many of the victims - and of their sufferings and their dignity. This reader, for one, cannot forget Caesar and Prince, Cuffee and Quack, black slaves burned alive for a pathetic conspiracy in 1741; or Clause, another slave, broken alive on the wheel outside City Hall and dying over many hours. Seventeen year-old Lanah Sawyer's wealthy rapist Henry Bedlow, may have been acquitted by a biased jury in 1793, and Lanah vilified, but she has her vindication in these pages. Cecilia and Wanda Stein live on through this book, starving German immigrants "unwilling to take up whoring", who spent their last pennies on some flowers, spruced up their dreary room, got into bed with Wanda's six-year old daughter, and swallowed prussic acid in 1852. There are countless other instances, and it is in its acknowledgement of the price paid by society's losers for the creation of the "Imperial City" of the climax that this work finds its true grandeur. In summary, this is a splendid history, magnificent in conception, thorough and generous-spirited in execution. The reader is left waiting impatiently for the next volume that will carry the story further by another century.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely not beach reading!
Review: This isn't the book you throw carelessly into your suitcase to take along and read while relaxing at the beach. It's weight alone would give your arm a cramp, and often its meticulous detail does the same for your mind. It's rather like "Everything you've always wanted to know about New York, and much, much more!" Finishing it, you feel as if you've just completed the New York Marathon: exhausted, but elated. All of the above being said, it's still well worth making the effort to read.
Rating:
Summary: Four for effort
Review: I agree with the reader from Crandon Lakes, New Jersey. While you can't fault the exhaustive research and the volume of information which has gone into "Gotham", the book lacks interpretative drive and personal vision. Perhaps the lack of a "lyrical" voice which the reader detects is a result of the dual authorship. The need to work through the enormous amount of facts to do with trade, legislation, social policy, financial administration etc, and the understandable need to do this as a combined effort has, at times, swamped the excitement of the subject. Worth persevering, nonetheless.
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