New York: An Illustrated HistoryThe companion volume to the PBS television series, with more than 500 full-color and black-and-white illustrations This lavish and handsomely produced book captures all the beauty, complexity, and power of New York -- the city that seems the very embodiment of ambition, aspiration, romance, desire; the city that has epitomized the entire parade of modern life, with all its possibilities and problems. Chronicling the story of New York from its establishment as a Dutch trading post in 1624 to its global preeminence today, the book is at once the biography of a great city and a vivid exploration of the myriad forces -- commercial, cultural, demographic -- that converged in New York to usher in the contemporary world. Weaving the strands of the city's sweeping history into a single compelling narrative, New York carries us through nearly four centuries of turbulent growth and change -- from the first settlement on the tip of "Manna-hata" Island to the destruction wrought by the Revolutionary War; to the city's stunning emergence in the nineteenth century as the nation's premier industrial metropolis; to the waves of early-twentieth-century immigration that forever transformed the city and the nation; to New York's transfiguration as the world's first modern city -- pioneering skyscrapers, apartment houses, subways, and highways -- and its role as the birthplace of so much of American popular culture. Along the way, we witness the building of the city's celebrated landmarks and neighborhoods, from the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building and the United Nations; from Wall Street and Times Square to the Lower East Side, Harlem, and SoHo. The bookbrims with vibrant illustrations, including hundreds of rare photographs, paintings, lithographs, prints, and period maps. The narrative incorporates the voices and stories of men and women -- statesmen, entrepreneurs, artists, and visionaries -- who have lived in and built the city: an extraordinary cast of characters that includes Peter Stuyvesant, Alexander Hamilton, John Jacob Astor, Walt Whitman, Boss Tweed, Jacob Riis, Emma Lazarus, J. P. Morgan, Al Smith, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, Fiorello La Guardia, Robert Moses, and Jane Jacobs. Accompanying the book's narrative are interviews with Robert A. Caro, David Levering Lewis, and Robert A. M. Stern, and essays by a group of distinguished New York historians and critics -- Kenneth T. Jackson, Mike Wallace, Marshall Berman, Phillip Lopate, Carol Berkin, and Daniel Czitrom -- who add their insights about the city to this splendid history. |
From inside the book
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Page 465
... Moses , but I didn't know — even with all of the articles that had been written about him — I didn't really know the ... Moses's day was splendid . He was cheered by the press for decade after decade but what is the city that he has left ...
... Moses , but I didn't know — even with all of the articles that had been written about him — I didn't really know the ... Moses's day was splendid . He was cheered by the press for decade after decade but what is the city that he has left ...
Page 497
... Moses's repeated attempts as park commis- sioner to curtail the area's concessions and sideshows , which he regarded as overcommer- cial and unsavory . On the blistering hot Sunday of July 4 , 1947 , Coney Island enjoyed the busiest day ...
... Moses's repeated attempts as park commis- sioner to curtail the area's concessions and sideshows , which he regarded as overcommer- cial and unsavory . On the blistering hot Sunday of July 4 , 1947 , Coney Island enjoyed the busiest day ...
Page 500
... Moses's roads were opening up an entire new world - the suburbs- -as more and more families were using the parkways to move out of New York entirely , relocating to the dozens of new residential communities rising beyond the city's ...
... Moses's roads were opening up an entire new world - the suburbs- -as more and more families were using the parkways to move out of New York entirely , relocating to the dozens of new residential communities rising beyond the city's ...
Contents
THE COUNTRY AND THE CITY 16091825 22 62 | 22 |
Alexander Hamilton the New Yorker with | 62 |
ORDER AND DISORDER 18251865 | 68 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
New York: An Illustrated History (Revised and Expanded) Ric Burns,James Sanders,Lisa Ades Limited preview - 2021 |
Common terms and phrases
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