Gotham
Book description
To European explorers, it was Eden, a paradise of waist-high grasses, towering stands of walnut, maple, chestnut, and oak, and forests that teemed with bears, wolves, racoons, beavers, otters, and foxes. Today it is the city of Broadway and Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty,…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Gotham as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I am definitely recommending some very big books here!
This one is easily recognizable because of the size of its spine, but it’s also incredibly interesting – an economic, social, and political history of New York City from its founding to consolidation, I think the best thing about this book is all the subjects it covers which I knew nothing about.
New York City during the American Revolution comes to mind. So does the early history of New York’s apartment buildings. There’s a reason this book won a Pulitzer Prize.
I like the sequel too (called Greater Gotham, only by…
From Jonathan's list on the history of New York City.
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History, this book is the essential guide to New York City history from the days of the Dutch colony to 1898, the year New York expanded to become the city of five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Despite its length, Gotham is eminently readable, thanks to its hundreds of colorful characters and fascinating stories of politics and culture in a rising world city. The wealth of research that went into this book—over twenty years’ worth—gives us by far our most complete single-volume account of how New York became New…
From Victoria's list on New York City History to 1900.
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