The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
Kim Phillips-Fein. Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2017. 417pp. $9.98. (Paperback) Review by Michael R. Glass By 1965, a $255 million gap had opened in the New York City budget. To cover the city’s operating expenses, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. decided to “borrow now, […]
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By Taoyu Yang Isabella Jackson. Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 274 pp. $99.99 (cloth). No Chinese city has attracted as much attention from academics and the public as Shanghai. The most cosmopolitan of Chinese cities, Shanghai for generations has been central both to China’s development and […]
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By Thai Jones Wallace, Mike. Greater Gotham: A History of New York City From 1898 to 1919 (New York: Oxford University Press,2018). 1182pp. $45.ISBN 978-0-19-511635-9 Greater Gotham opens on New Year’s Eve, 1897, with thousands massing in Union Square before stepping off to join a parade celebrating consolidation of the five boroughs—including what were at […]
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Kelly Lytle Hernández. City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. We are living in an era of human caging on a massive scale. Each night, 2.2 million people fall asleep locked inside one of more than 6,000 prisons, jails, […]
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Strausbaugh, John. Victory City: A History of New York and New Yorkers during World War II. (New York: Twelve, 2018). 497pp. $30. ISBN 1455567485 Reviewed by Michael L. Levine Victory City tells what it was like to live in New York during the Great Depression and World War II. The book may not break new […]
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By Robert B. Carey, Ph.D. Germ City: Microbes and the Metropolis. Museum of the City of New York until April 28th https://www.mcny.org/exhibition/germ-city Review of Germ City and Related Podcasts Radio Station WYNC https://www.wnyc.org/story/germ-city/ We live in a time of New York Triumphalism—it is hard to avoid the celebratory tone and the accompanying music that rehearses […]
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Dear Metropolers, What recent or forthcoming books would you be interested in reviewing for The Metropole? Reviews generally run 500 to 750 words, and they should be completed for posting during the spring or summer. Here are some examples of past reviews. This spring we will be posting: Llana Barber on City of Inmates: Conquest, […]
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Klinenberg, Eric. Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life. (New York, New York: Crown, 2018). 336 pp. $28. ISBN 978-1-5247-6116-5 By Jacob Bruggeman Americans today consistently hear about the differences in wealth, geography, identity and politics that divide us, but they hear rather less […]
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By Edward G. Goetz I want to thank Eric Michael Rhodes for his thoughtful read of my book, The One-Way Street of Integration. The great challenge of writing the book, which Mr. Rhodes seems to have sensed in his remarks at the end of his review, was in articulating a vision for how to use […]
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Edward G. Goetz, The One-Way Street of Integration: Fair Housing and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in American Cities. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017. 224 pp. notes, index. ISBN 9781501707599 Reviewed by Eric Michael Rhodes Should those concerned about racial inequality in the American metropolis bring opportunity to people or help people move to opportunity? This […]
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