This book's 1200 pages and substantial weight should not daunt prospective buyers, for it is has the flow of a well-written novel and holds the reader's attention from the outset. It covers every aspect of New York's growth through nearly three centuries, the emphasis shifting from chapter to chapter from the social to the economic to the industrial to the political, yet always maintaining an easy chronological flow. Old controversies and concerns, many long forgotten, are brought to life through the authors' emphasis on roles played by individuals, and by the hundreds of short biographical sketches woven seamlessly into in the narrative. To do "Gotham" justice would require a far longer review than this, and any one of a dozen different aspects could be selected for praise. The book's most striking feature is perhaps its delineation of the extent to which ethnic and religious resentments dominated the city right until the end of the nineteenth century, emphasising that the "melting pot" was a far from popular or comfortable process. Discrimination and oppression were inherent from the foundation of Nieuw Amsterdam and the later transition from colony to free republic did little to reduce them - indeed the most virulent hatreds appear to have seethed in the middle of the nineteenth century, as entrenched WASP interests resented and resisted the growing presence and power of German and Irish immigrants. The book ends with these interests in uneasy equilibrium and with the wave of Italian and Jewish new arrivals seeking to stake their own positions, with the later in particular bringing a new dimension in social awareness and responsibility. Throughout the period covered the plight of Black Americans is perhaps the most pitiful of all and provides a terrible counterpoint to the growth of prosperity enjoyed by part at least of all other ethnic groups. Though this history is rich in rascals of theatrical wickedness such as Bosses Tweed and Croker, the most odious personalities tend to be respectable establishment figures: the philanthropist John Pintard observing during the 1832 Cholera epidemic "that the sooner "the scum of the city" was dispatched, the sooner the fever, deprived of fodder, would pass" (p.591); the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (then earning $30,000 per annum) drawing laughter and applause from his congregation during the 1870's Depression by reminding them that though man could not live by bread alone, a family could survive on bread and water - and water was free (p.1036); E.L.Godkin, editor of "The Nation" declaring during that same time of misery that "Free soup must be prohibited" (p.1031). Against so many dismal examples of intolerance, self-righteousness and greed the book's greatest strength is that it saves from obscurity the names of some many of the victims - and of their sufferings and their dignity. This reader, for one, cannot forget Caesar and Prince, Cuffee and Quack, black slaves burned alive for a pathetic conspiracy in 1741; or Clause, another slave, broken alive on the wheel outside City Hall and dying over many hours. Seventeen year-old Lanah Sawyer's wealthy rapist Henry Bedlow, may have been acquitted by a biased jury in 1793, and Lanah vilified, but she has her vindication in these pages. Cecilia and Wanda Stein live on through this book, starving German immigrants "unwilling to take up whoring", who spent their last pennies on some flowers, spruced up their dreary room, got into bed with Wanda's six-year old daughter, and swallowed prussic acid in 1852. There are countless other instances, and it is in its acknowledgement of the price paid by society's losers for the creation of the "Imperial City" of the climax that this work finds its true grandeur. In summary, this is a splendid history, magnificent in conception, thorough and generous-spirited in execution. The reader is left waiting impatiently for the next volume that will carry the story further by another century.
