Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

by Mike Wallace, Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195116348
• ISBN13: 9780195116342
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 1416 Pages
• Weight: 4.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 7.2" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

How it should be done

Gotham is the deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize. While it took me months to complete it--and I am a voracious reader--it was time well spent. Not only is the book immensely informative, it is utterly readable. I also found Gotham to be highly balanced, covering a wide range of topics. In no way did the book feel overly PC, dwelling on certain subjects at the expense of others. Yes, it covers (as it should), the slave conspiracy scare, Helen Jewett murder, abortion, environmentalism, Henry George, and the various labor movements, but Gotham gives equal room to Stuyvesant, Alexander Hamilton, Dewitt Clinton, Fernando Wood, Roosevelt, baseball, and Coney Island. Compare Gotham to a pick-and-choose textbook, or slanted politicized history like Howard Zinn or Patriots History of America, it's no contest.

Great Giant Tome for a Great Giant Town

Gotham is a significant achievement as a work of history. The beauty of this book is that, despite its length, it is engrossing and very readable all the way through. Indeed, the last 100 pages are as interesting if not more interesting than the first 100 pages. Rich with interesting anecdotes, and a cast of dozens of characters and true stories that are as colorful as the fiction in any Dickens novel, it is a rewarding read, albiet a somewhat challenging one if only because of its 1236 pages of text. Particularly interesting are the sections on the New Amsterdam period, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, including the Draft Riots, crime, the development of Wall Street and the Stock Exchange, Boss Tweed, the Brooklyn Bridge, transportation and the rail boom, electric lighting, the Astor Place riot, fire companies, immigration, the Astors, Teddy Roosevelt, Coney Island, the skyscraper and building booms,... and the list goes on and on. This is not just a history of New York, but also a history essential to understanding America's past. The book is an enriching read, and heartily recommended.

Unbelievable, Remarkable, fascinating

This is the definitive book on New York City history and is a remarkable accomplishment for it's authors. You'll find in Gotham not only a history of New York City (and an exhaustive one at that) but by default, a companion to the study of the foundations of this nation. Gotham is remarkably colorful in it's portrayal of the many characters that make up the history of this great city but doesn't skimp on poignant, and sometimes sobering, detail. An ambitious read, but worth every word. This is the kind of book that spawns the reading of ten more!A sure cure for the unfortunate predisposition of the popular media to portray the history of New York as beginning with the first immigrant who set foot on Ellis Island (the book terminates prior to 1900). Read Gotham and become immersed in the richness of the mostly untold New York story.

Endlessly fascinating story of an endlessly fascinating city

I have only read about a tenth of this mammoth work so far and I have found it to be one of the best written and most interesting books I've ever come across. As an Australian, I've always had a great fascination with New York (I've been there twice) - it's history, it's beautiful skyline and it's great contribution in so many areas like the arts & architecture (the Chrysler Building is one of the most gorgeous pieces of modern design in the world, in my opinion). So, to read such a marvellously written work on the city itself was a book I couldn't resist. Despite it's weight (it's quite a load to carry to work every day on the train) I LITERALLY can't put it down. Well done, Professors Burrows & Wallace - I can't wait for the next volume from 1898 onwards!