Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (The History of NYC Series)

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Summary: Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History
Review: Congratualtions to Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace for winning the Pulitzer Prize! Well deserved after 20 years of work. Now...coming soon Mike Wallace will comtinue the story with the second edition, which will cover New York City from 1899 to the present.

If you would like to comment on GOTHAM to the authors directly, please do so at [e-mail].

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Summary: Gotham is not just New York history but American history
Review: Gotham proves to me that we should spend less time teaching children about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and more about New York's founding. What is revealed page after page in Gotham is a microcosm of American history. The enthusiastic writing and personal accounts make the 13 hundred pages fly by. I would have liked more maps and illustrations, but Gotham is certainly one of THE most important books to bring to life THE most important city.

Rating:
Summary: Lacking in a couple of key areas
Review: No question - GOTHAM is comprehensive. But saying it's the "best book yet written about NYC" is NOT the same as saying it's anything close to the best book that could be written.

The main disappointments for me maps.

While the descriptions of the city are detailed for every era, the lack of "lyricism" cited by an earlier reviewer at this web site leaves the reader without a mind's eye image of what the city must have BEEN like, and looked like.

Pet peeve - did anyone else notice how many times the authors used the phrase " - odd" to denote an inexact quantity? I know it sounds trivial, but it drove me nuts, it was so frequent. E.g., "twenty-odd years later," "fifty-odd administrators," "two hundred odd voters," "thirty odd Whigs," and on and on. I counted 50 instances of this locution in the first 400 pages. Or is it 50-odd?

Anyway, it's an outstanding reference work, but not a great piece of writing

Rating:
Summary: Great book, great read, great author.
Review: Edwin Burrows was my professor in Brooklyn College and he is a true expert on the city of New York. This is a great book and it is filled with many facts and interesting tidbits on New York. Burrows for Mayor.

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Summary: GOTHAM won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History!
Review: Please contact the authors directly with more comments: [e-mail]. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Mammoth, Enlightening and Engrossing
Review: "Gotham" is by far the best history yet written on the history of early New York City. As a born-and-bred New Yorker who has always had something of an obsession with the history of the city, I am now even more thoroughly entranced. Don't let the 1,000+ pages put you off: like a good film, you can sit by your reading lamp till your legs cramp up and not even notice - every chapter goes down smoother than a Jello shot and leaves you thirsty for the next. Bottoms up!

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Summary: Vivid history about the town so nice they named it twice
Review: Washington, D.C., may be the nation's capital, but New York City is the nation's soul. The fact that we use it as a standard of measurement indicates how we feel about the city. We compare our art, our politics and the sizes of our cities to it. We sneer at it. We tell jokes about it. Glance at a map, and its place names (Coney Island! Brighton Beach! Bedford-Stuyvesant!) pop out, impressed on our collective memory from movies, plays, literature, television shows. America belongs to New York City and we're just paying rent.

Two books go a long way toward showing how it got that way: "Gotham" is a massive yet readable history of the city, while "Writing New York" From the Library of America makes an amiable companion with its collection of stories and memoirs.

"Gotham" takes 1,350 pages to tell its story, starting with the Lenape Indians roaming the fertile lands and closing at the end of the 19th century when the five boroughs voted to bind themselves together. In between is a kaleidoscope of characters, incidents, good times and bad times, and Burrows and Wallace succeeded in crafting a history where you can dip into it at random, be enthralled or appalled and not lose your way.

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Summary: "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About New York City"
Review: Broad, all-encompassing, and scholarly. The book to turn to when reading smaller tomes, and more information is required. Only criticism, perhaps a serious one, is its lack of lyricism. New York is a city of myth, like all great cities - ancient and modern. Defining a great city is not only about cataloguing every fact in chronological order - although that surely has its place. To capture the special aura of New York, I would refer the reader to The Epic of New York City (Ellis) for one, and always return to Gotham for the details. New York city awaits its Homer. Not found here.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: An amazing synoptic history, fluid, easy to read, compelling, despite its bulk. Can't wait until the 20th century volume arrives. A must read for New Yorkers and others interested in the city.

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Summary: A Monument History of New York City
Review: GOTHAM is a history of... Native-American lives in North America, a Dutch colony in the new world, British colonialism in America, women in the new world, the American Revolutionary War, the first capitol of the United States of America, American literature, Africans and African-Americans in the United States, the founding of the United States

GOTHAM is also... a narrative of the Irish, German and Italian immigrants in the new world, a look at the genesis of American aristocracy, a chronicle of unions and the early labor movements, an account of the formation of the middle class, a social and cultural history of the United States, a financial history of the United States, an account of the early feminist movement, a history of Jews in America, a glimpse at the Robber Barons, a chronicle of the publishing and newspaper industries, the history of politics and political corruption in America, a riveting document of the Civil War in the North, a look at the birth and growth of Wall Street, a record of religious movements in the United States, a history of America...

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS TO PUBLISH GOTHAM, A MONUMENTAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY From ITS BEGINNING, AS A NATIVE-AMERICAN INDIAN VILLAGE, TO ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT CITIES.

GOTHAM Reveals a New York That Reflects the History of the Entire Nation, A Deft Portrait of the Very Heart and Soul of America. The Events and People That Fill These Pages Guarantee a History That Transcends the Five Boroughs.

This November, Oxford University Press will publish GOTHAM: A History of New York City to 1898, by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. Burrows is Professor of History at Brooklyn College. Wallace is Professor of History at John Jay College, City University of New York. Together they have been researching and writing for 20 years to produce this monumental history of New York City, weaving hundreds of stories into one compelling portrait. They are widely recognized authorities on the history of New York, praised by historian Eric Foner of Columbia University as scholars "uniquely qualified to undertake such a book."

GOTHAM is a comprehensive history of New York beginning with the Indian settlements and the subsequent seizure of the city by the Dutch in 1626 through the consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York City in 1898. Burrows and Wallace weave together economic, social, cultural, and political history to tell the fascinating story of how the Indian settlement of Manna-hata became one of the world's greatest cities by the end of the 19th century. It covers an extraordinary range of topics, including the history of Jewish, African, Asian, Spanish and Irish immigrants; politics; business; religion; the military; race, gender, and class; architecture; society; sports; special customs; and amusements, exploring these many facets with unprecedented depth and acuity.

Readers will experience: The founding of New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company Peter Stuyvesant's despotic regime Indian wars Slave resistance and revolt The Revolutionary War and the defeat of Washington's Army on Brooklyn Heights The destructive seven years of British occupation New York as the nation's first capital The duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton The Erie Canal and the coming of the railroads The growth of the city as a port and financial center The infamous draft riots of the Civil War Immigration The rise of Vaudeville and Coney Island The building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and The birth of the skyscraper

Here too is a cast of thousands--the rebel Jacob Leisler; the reformer Joanna Bethune; Clement Moore, who saved Greenwich Village from the city's street-grid plan; Herman Melville, who painted disillusioned portaits of city life; and Walt Whitman, who happily celebrated that same life. We meet Boss Tweed and his nemesis, cartoonist Thomas Nast; Emma Goldman and Nellie Bly, Jacob Riis and Horace Greeley; police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt; millionaires John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, August Belmont, and William Randolph Hearst. And these are but a few of the hundreds who have left their mark on this great city.

The events and people that fill these pages guarantee a history that transcends the five boroughs. GOTHAM reveals a New York that reflects the history of the entire nation, painting a portrait of the very heart and soul of America.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Edwin G. Burrows is Professor of History at Brooklyn College. Mike Wallace is Professor of History at John Jay College, City University of New York. Wallace is the co-author (with Richard Hofstadter) of American Violence and the author of Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays. He helped found and for twenty-five years has helped publish and edit Radical History Review.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR GOTHAM

"An epic narrative worthy of the world's greatest city." --Kenneth T. Jackson, Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of New York City

There has simply never been anything quite like this extraordinarily ambitious and capacious history of the city. Analytically penetrating; indefatigably scholarly in its painstaking accumulation of detail and event; and for all its size written with remarkable energy and grace." --Ric Burns, director, New York: A Documentary Film

"A page-turner...fascinating, dramatic and compelling." --Jane Alexander, former head of the NEA

"I was transported back in time. I was fascinated as door after door was mentally opened as I turned page after page. I have never read a book that tells so interestingly who we are and how we got where we are." --Brooke Astor

"Gotham is a masterpiece. It is the best history of New York City ever written. It will be read a century from now." --Edward Robb Ellis, author of The Epic of New York City