The Spirit of the Ghetto

by Hutchins Hapgood

Book Overview

First published in 1902, and illustrated by Jacob Epstein, this evocation of the spiritual and cultural life of Yiddish New York remains fresh and relevant, and an invaluable commentary on one aspect... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 154830896X
• ISBN13: 9781548308964
• Release Date: July 2017
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

No Spirit in Hapgood's ghetto

This book came highly recommended as a window into the lives of the Jewish immigrants of the Lower East Side and I was quite eager to read it. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Although Mr. Hapgood was accurate in the portrayal of his subjects, his portraits appeared dry and obviously written by a non-Jewish outsider. His "Spirit of the Ghetto" was actually pretty spiritless and came off as an anthropological study. For a more interesting and realistic picture of these dynamic people, I suggest Irving Howe's "World of Our Fathers" or the fiction of Abraham Cahan. The beautiful drawings of Jacob Epstein, however, compensate for the shortcomings of Hapgood's stilted prose and make this book a worthwhile purchase.