Gotham:A History of New York City to 1898

Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace

Oxford University Press, Oct 9, 1998 - History - 1416 pages

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, raccoons, beavers, otters, and foxes. Today, it is the site of Broadway and Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, and the home of millions of people, who have come from every corner of the nation and the globe. In Gotham, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace have produced a monumental work of history, one that ranges from the Indian tribes that settled in and around the island of Manna-hata, to the consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898. It is an epic narrative, a story as vast and as varied as the city it chronicles, and it underscores that the history of New York is the story of our nation. Readers will relive the tumultuous early years of New Amsterdam under 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, the great flood of immigrants, the rise of mass entertainment such as 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 and the reformer Joanna Bethune; Clement Moore, who saved Greenwich Village from the city's street-grid plan; Herman Melville, who painted disillusioned portraits of city life; and Walt Whitman, who happily celebrated that same life. We meet the rebel Jacob Leisler and the reformer Joanna Bethune; Boss Tweed and his nemesis, cartoonist Thomas Nast; Emma Goldman and Nellie Bly; Jacob Riis and Horace Greeley; police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt; Colonel Waring and his "white angels" (who revolutionized the sanitation department); millionaires John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, August Belmont, and William Randolph Hearst; and hundreds more who left their mark on this great city. The events and people who crowd these pages guarantee that this is no mere local history. It is in fact a portrait of the heart and soul of America, and a book that will mesmerize everyone interested in the peaks and valleys of American life as found in the greatest city on earth. Gotham is a dazzling read, a fast-paced, brilliant narrative that carries the reader along as it threads hundreds of stories into one great blockbuster of a book.

What people are saying

Review: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

User Review  - Kevin - Goodreads

Incredibly detailed and well-researched. It is a massive book that is a little daunting to contemplate undertaking but reads very well and tells some incredible stories. Obviously it was a labor of ...

Review: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

User Review  - John Bianchi - Goodreads

Definitive, extraordinarily detailed, and exciting. Its a great read.

Contents

• LENAPE COUNTRY AND NEW AMSTERDAM TO 1664: 1
• BRITISH NEW YORK 16641783: 75
• MERCANTILE TOWN 17831843: 263
• EMPORIUM AND MANUFACTURING CITY 18441879: 647
• INDUSTRIAL CENTER AND CORPORATE COMMAND POST 18801898: 1039
• References: 1237
• Bibliography: 1263
• Acknowledgments: 1307
• Indexes: 1313

About the author

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. Together they have collaborated for twenty years to produce this book, the first volume in the definitive history of New York City.

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. Together they have collaborated for twenty years to produce this book, the first volume in the definitive history of New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Gotham:A History of New York City to 1898; The History of NYC Series
• Authors: Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998
• ISBN: 0199741204, 9780199741205
• Length: 1416 pages
• Subjects: History / General; History / United States / State & Local / General