| Synopsis: |
Published in 1998 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History, GOTHAM: A History of New York to 1898 established itself as the peerless account of America's greatest city, from its beginnings as a settlement of Indian Tribes around the island of Manna-hata to the consolidation of the five boroughs. It told a story as vast and as varied as the city it chronicled, revealing the degree to which the history of New York reflected and guided the story of our nation. In Greater Gotham Mike Wallace, co-author of GOTHAM, picks up the story of New York at the critical juncture of 1898 and carries it forward during the period when it became not just the country's greatest urban center but a megapolis on an international scale, and with global reach. Between consolidation and the end of World War One, New York was transformed and transforming, mirroring the juggernauting dynamism of the country at large-and largely fueling it. The names of two its streets encapsulate the degree of the city's preeminence: Wall Street and Broadway. Greater Gotham reveals the workings of the city's consolidation; the emerging hegemony of its financial markets, which effectively reconstructed U.S. capitalism; the influx of migrants from other continents and from the American South; the development of its massive infrastructure-subways and waterways and electrical grid; and New York's growing dominance over the arts, media, and entertainment.It captures and illuminates the swings of prosperity and downturn, from the 1898 skyscraper-driven boom, to the Bankers' Panic of 1907, to the labor upheavals and repressions during and after the World War One. By 1920, New York was the second-largest city in the world and arguably its new capital. Long awaited and eagerly anticipated, Greater Gotham is the product of years of research and writing. Utterly immersive, endlessly enlightening, and worthy of the subject that has inspired it, this volume matches in breadth, scope, and page-turning appeal its predecessor, and takes it further. |