New York Books

I absolutely loved this book -- every word! These are real people with real lives. You'll know them and love them and hate like crazy to tell them goodbye at the end of the book. I'm a Texan who's never been to New York, but I'm already missing the neighborhood! (Penny Marshall, I hope you're reading this book; it would make a fantastic movie!) ;)

I'll definitely be watching for more from Donna Cantor...she's made my list with this one!

The characters come alive with every printed word.You feel that you are part of their lives and you just never want it to end!

I picked this book off the shelf at random, not expecting much. What I found was the entralling story of a young woman from a working class neighborhood. While the events that happen in Joanna's life, the main character, are mostly mundane (with a few exceptions), the way in which they are reported is far from boring. Cantor's writing draws the reader into the lives of her characters. Her depictions of people and their interactions with one another ring true and familiar. They are also universal. The story begins with the death of a neighbor and the reintroduction of Joanna with the deceased's grandson, Tommy McClellan. What follows is not the storybook romance of movies and fairytales but the fumbling and rockiness of a real-life relationship. Tommy is tough, unconventional, and unfamilar with relationships that last longer than a weekend. Their problems, and the feeling that permeates through the written word, are the focus of the story. Once I began this book, I found it near impossible to tear myself away. I read it largely in one sitting, and felt a sense of loss once the novel was finished. Even now, three weeks later, the book is with me. This book is neither cheesy nor unrealistic, and is a definite "must-read" for anyone who loves love but hates conventional romance.

Excellent effort from a first-time writer. Held my interest from start to finish. The characters were well-developed and different from anything I've read before. A must-read for avid readers.

For those of us who live in Queens or Brooklyn, shop at the corner candy store and still see old school buddies around the neighborhood, this book feels like home. Ordinary life and people, really are marvelous, Donna captures this and when you have read the last page, you start to miss every character.

Saying that I use this book almost every week end should be enough.
This is the best book to have for one day getaway from New York.
Reliable and of good advice.
This is The book I read to chose my week ends hike when I can't leave for more than one day. It has saved my week ends more than once!

Easy to use and informative. I look forward to picking hikes for the summer.

This book details, in an easy to read fashion, legitmate day hikes (3-9 miles) in the NY/NJ region. If you are looking for hikes that offer the best of what southern NY and northern NJ has to offer, this book is for you.

This is the must-have book for anyone who loves hiking. It's got the best trails, along with tons of great info. Everything you need if you live in and around New York City and love the outdoors.

I've lived in New York City for ten years, and just when I thought I'd done/seen it all, along comes this great book! I just completed my first hike outlined in "Take a Hike: New York City" yesterday (in the Ramapo Mountains of New Jersey) and I'm hooked. I carried the guide with me and - being a novice hiker - found that all the detail was perfect and wise. And it's smartly written as well with a bit of humor! I might last another ten years in New York now that I've been introduced to another facet of the city I call home.

Exceptionally well written book by a renowned current day investigative reporter about one of our first and foremost investigative reporters, Ida Tarbell. You'll learn about REAL American history starting with the early days of the oil business, thru the Civil War and into the industrial boom of the early 20th Century. Its an extremely perceptive American historical masterpiece and a real life feminist saga not to be missed by men and women alike.

Author Steve Weinberg writes that Ida Tarbell's expose of John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Company is "arguably the greatest work of investigative journalism ever written." As a veteran investigative journalist myself, I wouldn't argue with that because Steve Weinberg is one of the best investigative biographers in our imperiled craft. I say "imperiled" because the newspapers that largely support our work are in an alarming state of decline. Will investigative reporting become a too-expensive luxury? What a horrible tragedy that would be. Ida Tarbell and the legions of investigative journalists who followed her example have been the watchdogs who have made democracy work. This book shows the critical importance of that role, as performed more than a century ago. Thanks to Steve Weinberg for bringing the pioneering Ida Tarbell back to life again today.

Having no knowledge of Ida Tarbell but interested in Rockefeller, I found this book a great read.
The author covers the subject in enough detail to make you knowledgable but doesn't get into minutia and bore you.
Ms. Tarbell is definitely a good role model for women and journalists of both sexes. Most current day journalists could revisit her standards.
The book provides plenty of pictures and tells a great story of a forgotten event of the period.

Steve Weinberg, one of America's most accomplished Journalism professors, has taken a "busman's holiday," in writing this fascinating and beautifully researched book. Weinberg, an inspiration to several generations of University of Missouri students, has written about one of his own heroes who no doubt helped influence his rather prestigious academic pathway. He has most satisfyingly delved into the epic battle of a single, brilliant young woman who successfully defined the power of the free press in 1904, pioneering investigative journalist Ida Tarbell who "muckraked" up the expensive and deep sediment underneath Standard Oil, standing alone against the awesome wealth and power of John D. Rockefeller.
Prof. Weinberg is as complete and intimate with his subject as any historian. Infused into this book is his profound sense of appreciation of the fierce, burning integrity and inspirational relentlessness of Ida Tarbell. He makes an excellent case for her monumental, fearless work "The History of the Standard Oil Company," as being the greatest work of investigative journalism ever written. The rich and world-saving traditions of the press in the twentieth century in many ways find their roots in Tarbell and her publisher Samuel McClure, who proved that the battle armor of a democratic society is its free press; without it, the people live in the dark.
This book will give the reader a completely refreshed pride in discovering that history can be riveting. In addition, it holds tremendous insight into the late-nineteenth century roots of the women's movement for equal rights, as well as the revolution for the rights of America's workers at the hands of monopolistic, big business. Ida Tarbell will become one of your new heroes.

Some journalists revel in muckraking reportage, and it doesn't make any difference to them that "muckraking" has been used as a term of opprobrium. There was a time when there was no tradition of newspapers doing investigative reporting; that tradition had to be invented. One of the inventors was Ida Tarbell who let the nation know how John D. Rockefeller was misusing corporate power. She didn't like to be called a muckraker, although she was in favor of reform, and the term had been coined by reform-minded Teddy Roosevelt. She resented that the term stuck to her, but it continues to do so. Rockefeller resented that her portrait of his abusive practices stuck to him, but it continues to do so. Tarbell was a journalistic innovator who deserves to be well known for her historic contributions to reporting and to society, and in _Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller_ (Norton) by Steve Weinberg, the story is told in absorbing detail. The book is supposed to tell the story of both main characters, but Weinberg is a reporter himself and can be excused for making Tarbell the star. She is, anyway, a lot more interesting than Rockefeller who didn't have much going for him except for the capacity to make lots of money, the same as many robber barons of the time. Tarbell never had anything close to the money or influence that Rockefeller had, but she won the contest between them, and she was the one proved right after all.

Tarbell shared her family's distrust of Standard Oil. Her father, and later her brother, became independent oil producers, and neither of them sold out to Standard Oil. Plenty of others did; Rockefeller swallowed up competitors and, as he pointed out, the smart ones took Standard Oil stock and became very rich indeed. The ones who tried to stay independent struggled to stay in business. Weinberg documents that her personal feelings may have powered her resolve to tell the Standard Oil story, but that she relied on facts as she had in all her previous researches. Here main revelation in her articles for _McClure's_ magazine was that Standard Oil had beaten out competitors by making secret deals with the railroads that transported its oil. She got the facts by looking at the files of letters kept by Rockefeller's competitors, by checking the records of his Baptist congregation, by looking into the records of governmental investigations into Standard Oil, and by contacting (with the help of Mark Twain) a sort of "Deep Throat" figure within the company itself. She not only connected facts, but she specifically reported about the sources she used; documenting sources is taken for granted now, but it was a novelty that she introduced into reporting. _McClure's_ published her series of articles from 1902 to 1904, the year her _History of the Standard Oil Company_ came out. Those who read her report could scarcely avoid agreeing with her evaluation that Rockefeller "... has introduced into business a spy system of the most odious character. He has turned commerce from a peaceful pursuit to war, and honeycombed it with cruel and corrupt practice, turned competition from honorable emulation to cutthroat struggle."

The Supreme Court in 1911 ruled that Standard Oil's abuses required its breakup, based mostly on evidence that Tarbell had produced. Rockefeller never directly addressed the charges, and he had expertly arranged his business affairs so that he seldom had to testify in any legal proceedings against the company. He barely mentioned Tarbell herself, except to lump her conveniently with "socialists and anarchists"; he was unable to see that Tarbell was an enthusiast for American capitalism fairly conducted. Weinberg's smoothly-written book is a combination of biographies and a narrative centering on one of the first instances of investigative journalism that made a difference. Weinberg says that Tarbell's work is "arguably the greatest work of investigative journalism ever written," and he makes the assessment seem a just one. There have been subsequent examples of how the labor of journalists has resulted in monumental social changes, but it is good to have this book as a reminder of the one that got the ball rolling.

I thought I was read all great writers for this misteries, crimes and all those, but Sanders has become one of my favourites ones (the first of course is Raymond Chandler). I'm going to read all his books!

Our eponymous hero returns in this second installment of the Timothy Series.
In the first novella, Run, Sally, Run, Timothy Cone has been specifically recommended to determine where leaks in a company, Pistol and Burns, are coming from. A Case of the Shorts begins with the assassination of John Dempster, CEO of Dempster-Torrey. Haldering and Co. is retained, and Timothy is drafted to investigate why the company is a target for industrial sabotage. In the last novella, One From Column A, Chin Tung Lee, of the White Lotus label, assigns the investigative team to discover why anyone would speculate in such a conservative company. Oedipal lust to unbridled greed actuated by hatred are just a little of what we see in The Game.
As usual, Timothy Cone cracks the cases with confidence and exaggerated bravado, leveraging on the knowledge of financial specialists, and his bevy of police informants. The whole cast from the Files are back, with some chaps added to compensate for the diversity of the new clientele.
Most Sanders fans when reading about this shabby detective are apt to compare him unfavorably to the dapper McNally. They might just be mistaken. Actually, both characters do have their similarities: their snitches in the police department who believe in quid pro quo, their emphasis on appearances and location, as well as their queer relationships, and controlled humor.
Yet Cone has his strengths. Here,the bad guys are unafraid to get their hands dirty; also, as each client is referred to Haldering and Co., there is a certain a continuity along stories. Moreover, since the focus is on financial institutions, a virgin forest in investigative fiction, we get to read a lot about the unheralded SEC.
In Timothy's Game, Lawrence Sanders delivers sizzling stuff that should be enjoyed in it's own right.

All the other so-called mystery writers should read Sanders' Timothys as Bible, but should not read any of his McNallys

This book is actually a collection of three stories about Wall Street investigator Timothy Cone. Originally issued in 1988, it was written when Lawrence Sanders was at the peak of his writing career (before he started insulting his fans by cranking out pot boilers). The stories concern various intrigues on Wall Street - insider trading, stock manipulation and short selling, and corporate takeovers and greenmail. The plots are well developed and well written, and the characters are interesting.

The best Lawrence Sanders I've read so far. Timothy is an engaging character, and I think that's why I enjoyed the book so much

Like its companion, The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, Torture and Truth is an essential resource for scholars or researchers on this subject. However, because of its length (500+ pages)and scope it is an excellent choice for the more general reader. It is a compilation of reports and letters, mostly from the Bush Administration, on the Iraq War and torture issues. Because of its primary source components, it is invaluable for anyone doing research on the subject. It is well-organized, and will find a place in many dissertations in the years to come.

This book offers a chilling rendition of the events that occured at Abu Gharib. It fairly reviews the events through official reports, which are quite chilling! A must read!!

This is by far the best journalistic account of the torture of suspects at Abu Ghraib. This is also the best book to read after reading the books of documents, which give you the vital context for understanding Danner's book. Read them first and then this one - you will then be able to understand what really happened and why. British and US troops really did commit terribe acts against their prisoners, with tragic consequences for the reputation of both nations in the Middle East. Read Danner and the documents books to discove why. Christopher Catherwood (author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ: Carroll and Graf, hardcover 2004, paperback 2005)

The author strongly makes the case that the Abu Ghraib torture scandal was not caused by a few rotten apples on the night shift, but was systematic torture as policy. The Red Cross report and other valid reports are in the book so that the reader can see for himself that the torture at Abu Ghraib was certainly far more than a few rotten apples that were military police serving in the reserves that were sent to Abu Ghraib.

There was sadism at Abu Ghraib. There was a breakdown in law and order at Abu Ghraib. There was a breakdown in discipline at Abu Ghraib. This, of course, puts our entire Country and our entire military at risk.

Not only is the torture wrong, but, beyond that, torture is ineffective and many of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib had no intelligence value in the first place. Torture is very harmful to our Country politically speaking. It is certainly the case that any information that was obtained by torture would be overshadowed by the political damage caused by the activities.

I bought Mark Danner's TORTURE AND TRUTH several months ago from Amazon, and find it ever more relevant to current events. For the numbers of people detained and tortured in the War on Terror-- many of them believed by reputable individuals and organizations to be innocent-- continues to rise, and extends far beyond Abu Ghraib. The very fact that the majority of these people have never been formally charged with involvement in terrorist activity nor tried seems to prove their innocence, for it would be very easy to keep someone in jail these days if one could present solid evidence of their involvment in terrorism. Those who object that the tortures inflicted on these detaninees is not as bad as that which some totalitarian governments inflict upon their victims ignore the fact that the "soft torture" techniques in development since the end of World War II have been found to be more effective in "breaking" victims than simple brutality (see Alfred McCoy, A QUESTION OF TORTURE: CIA INTERROGATION FROM THE COLD WAR TO THE WAR ON TERROR). The suffering of these wretched detainees keeps me awake at night, yet to this day most people seem unconcerned about their plight. Danner's comment from the Introduction to his book still holds true: "Like other scandals that have erupted during the Iraq War and the war on terror, it is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act."

This book is a must for New Yorkers who want to learn more about their city and for out-of-towners visiting New York. The text, photographs, and maps are outstanding.

I adore the lower part of Midtown (under 34th St.) and this book is what I was looking for. Quick, concise but at the same time rich and precious is a work that covers comprehensively some of the most fascinating Manhattan's neighbourhoods. From the elegant Gramercy Park to the fashionable Chelsea, Touring the Flatiron is an amazing experience either for the native either for the visitor.

The research is impecable. The photographs are fabulous and the book is very easy to follow, whether you are walking the neighborhoods with it or sitting on your couch. Rarely do tour books include original research as well as challenge prior thought, as this one has. This is an indespensible guide for anyone interested in the history of New York and/or the history of the architechure of cities.

This author is incredibly well known in NYC as a city historian and has a supreme knowledge about the area. The book is organized in a logical manner and the photographs are excellent as well as interesting. A must have for anyone planing to tour, or live in lower manhattan. makes a great gift/Housewarming present! I look forward to her next book about the lower east side. I hear the photo research for that is amazing as well.

My grandma worked really hard on this book,and it is very good. The pictures are wonderful and it is very interesting with tons of facts and stories.

This book delineates the concepts of Abinavagupta's investiture of the heart or hridaya as metaphorically analogous to the centermost reality of supreme consciousness. This exposition becomes the vehicle for a foundational exploration into the historical development and conceptual underpinning of the Kaula lineage and its interweaving influence amongst the larger framework of non-dual Kashmir Shavism.

Mr. Ortega's extensive research and refined scholarship is clearly evidenced throughout this work. While the literary style is thoroughly scholastic in disposition, one could presuppose that readers less familiar with the rigors of this venue could find the linguistic constructs unduly pedantic and inaccessible. This work is implicitly conceived as a scholarly interrogatory into the numinous symbology of the heart, and the author makes no supererogative overtures to attitudinize this as a pedagogical guidebook of mediation or tantric praxis. While those with a predilection for the trance state will find ample catalyst for such while ruminating over the significance of the weighty subject matter, the kernel of this work is largely philosophical in nature and its potency relies primarily upon absorption into one's own conceptual fabric. The onus of methodologically deciphering and putting into practice the myriad of specific kaula oriented techniques employed and espoused by Abhinavagupta, which are by and large beyond the parameters of this work, remains squarely on the shoulders, if not the heart, of the reader.

This magnificent piece of literature contains wisdom so deep, so clear and so intellectually developed I am sometimes unable to read more than a sentence or two before I am plunged into a space of unrelenting power. Each sentence has been carefully worded as to not waste even one second of the student's time in speculation or controversy. It's as if Abhinavagupta, with his expert hands, surgically removes our ingorance of Shiva, in so doing, he leaves us unable to experience anything else! "The heart of Siva is not a static or inert absolute, however. In fact, the non-dual Kashmir Shaiva tradition considers it to be in a state of perpetual movement, a state of vibration in which it is continuously contacting and expanding..." The Triadic Heart pg. 82

Not only a rare and brilliant sanskritist, Paul Muller illuminates a once obscure mystical-religious tradition with the erudition of the most accomplished scholar. His rich background in the history of religion and familiarity with a seemingless endless variety of sanskrit texts show throughout his writing. He explains intricate spiritual concepts in straightforward terms and unearths the complexities of deceptively simple images, whose meanings might go otherwise unappreciated without his detailed explanations. Rock-steady in his approach, he somehow balances painstaking technical analysis with broad conceptual understanding. He traces around sanskrit words close to their sources, never straying far from the original texts. Moving beyond the literal, he also treats symbols as multilayered representations of human experience. His work exemplifies intellectual exploration and impeccable scholarship, but also packs rich insight and meaning. After reading more basic works, this is the one that will provoke new thoughts and a thirst for more knowledge about the complexities of indian religious and spiritual systems.

The Heart as a metaphor for the enlightened experience of consciousness was masterfully revealed by the great Shaivist sage, mystic and scholar Abhinavagupta. Abhinavagupta "taught from a level of complete spiritual awakening with the authority of one who was considered a Siva incarnate." The study of these teachings, for the student able to attain and maintain meditative absorption, may be the basis for a radical transformation in consciousness to spiritually awakened Being in nondual freedom of awareness.

This book contains priceless wisdom from a first-rate scholar, who, surely, must be an experienced tantric yogin! You could sincerely say that he has discovered & revealed the secret of the real holy Graal in these pages. It's very much a practical handbook on how to become immortal - like a lamp that lights the way to the god within.
I hope Mr Ortega publishes more material like this. Better still, I wish he were my Guru to learn from first hand....

Great indepth history of the beginning of flyfishing in the Catskills with biographies of the flyfishing legends...

Very informative, details very easy to understand. I am extremely glad that I bought this book.

This book is great, I can't imagine a more complete account of fishing in the area. Going back before the 1800s. Ed Van Put demonstrates over a century's worth of fishing in the Catskills, telling great stories along the way.

This book chronicles the history of the Catskill Mountains in New York through the ribbon of trout fishing since its inception in the US. It is a fascinating story told by the King of the Delaware, Ed Van Put. This story will hold the attention of ardent fisherman and history buffs alike. The photography is beautiful and I learned so much about the plight of the fish and it's environs through the last 200 years. Any fisherman would be thrilled to cast a line around this book.

This is a very interesting, informative and entertaining book. I live on the northern edge of the catskills and have fished many of the places mentioned. I really enjoyed reading this and would recommend it to anyone who loves trout fishing.

This brilliant little book (71 pages of actual text) records twenty days in which Hawthorne was in effect a single parent for his five year old son, Julian, during August 1851. Hawthorne's wife Sophia, called Phoebe in the book, and two daughters (seven year old Una and newborn Rose) go off to visit Sophia's parents. Hawthorne is with Julian for just about every waking moment of Julian's day, running from six or seven AM to seven or seven thirty PM. He records their days in his notebook; and, despite the brief and informal style of these notes (and they are notes and not a detailed chronicle), succeeds in evoking nearly the totality of a child's day. I doubt that any major writer has ever so completely and carefully focused on what a five year old actually does and what his life is like.

Hawthorne is also direct and frank. He gets exasperated (as all parents do) about the constant demands for attention, the nonstop childish chatter and the endless sometimes inane questions but only rarely rebukes Julian. On the whole, Hawthorne is remarkably patient. He is amused by Julian's battles with the monsters that appear in the form of thistles and weeds which Julian routinely and daily slaughters. He is fascinated by Julian's determined and uniformly unsuccessful fishing. He admires Julian's great good nature and his gusto. Hawthorne takes care of the boy's minor illnesses, injuries and accidents. He feeds, dresses, bathes and clothes him daily. He also tries to curl his hair. Some of these actions he admits are badly or clumsily done but they are all clearly done with love.

The book also contains a few insights into other aspects of the normally reserved Hawthorne. He is positively volcanic about his dislike of Massachusetts's Berkshire region and its weather and his contemptuous and angry references to a neighbor and to (of all things) the Shaker sect are painful to read. Also clear, however, is his deep love for his family and for friends such as Melville and his love of life generally. He goes to considerable lengths to rescue a kitten trapped in a cistern and does what he can for the well-being of Bunny, whom he obviously considers a rather dull creature. There are observations on the daily round of country life in 1851 as well, including the contents of meals (little meat but plentiful milk, vegetables and rice), interactions with others, visitors and other matters.

The prose is very direct and clear, a far cry from Hawthorne's complex, allusive and often indirect formal style. This is a record of parenting and of a child's life that is moving and beautiful. There is also a useful if perhaps somewhat overlong introduction by writer Paul Auster.

I had previously thought of Nathaniel Hawthorne as serious, stuffy, reclusive - as indeed many contemporaries thought of him. However, _Twenty Days with Julian_ show another side of the man - and the eternal joy and wonder of childhood.

While his wife and daughters were away, Hawthorne spent three weeks alone with his son, Julian. Chronicling their activities, you get a clear sense of the time and of the person Hawthorne was. But what was most pleasant - and surprising - was how similar 4 year old Julian was to children today. A joyful read that would make an excellent Father's Day present.

This is abrief book, but full of great writing. It's very interesting to see what has changed in 150 years - the food, the activities, the words, and what hasn't - how little kids behave.

Hawthorne really captures the boundless energy and joy of small children, as well as his own sense of bewilderment as a father.

Everything positive said about this book is true. But I would add this: Mr. Auster's introduction is excellent until he reaches a point where he starts divulging some of the best points in the diary. So buy the book and go straight to the diary. Then enjoy Auster's wonderful intro. Bravo to NYRB for publishing this as a stand alone book; what a great gift for a new parent!
CS

From July 28th until August 16th, 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife Sophia took their daughters on a visit to her relatives, leaving her husband home to care for their 5 year-old son, Julian. Hawthorne kept a record of his time with the little boy in a journal, calling the episode "Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny by Papa". Anyone familiar with Hawthorne's exquisite, almost recondite writing style as exemplified by his novels and short stories will hardly recognize him in the guise of babysitter and chronicler of his jet-propelled kid's activities. Driven nearly to distraction by Julian's nonstop chatter and noisemaking (Hawthorne's wife had recently given birth to baby Rose, and the little boy was constantly being told to keep quiet), Hawthorne nevertheless decides to allow the child the freedom to be as noisy as he likes while the baby is away. This proves to be an exercise in forbearance for poor papa, as Julian proves to have no off switch, making it "impossible to read, write, think, or even sleep (in the daytime) so constant are his appeals..." Over the ensuing three weeks, the two take daily walks to fetch the milk, and to the lake where Julian fishes with furious, single-minded determination and catches absolutely nothing. Hawthorne struggles to figure out how his wife curls the kid's hair, and there are several unfortunate events - a bedwetting accident, a pants-peeing incident, the kid gets stung by a wasp, the pet bunny, Hindlegs, dies and is buried in the garden, much to Julian's amusement. (He hopes a Bunny Tree will spring up, covered all over in bunnies hanging by their ears.) Through it all, Hawthorne, in spite of his befuddlement with the finer points of child care, bears up gracefully, proving himself not only a gentle and loving father, but a genius at capturing the essence of childhood and the joy of witnessing,close at hand, his little boy's joie de vivre.

What most interested me in this brilliant collection is Bender's periodization of New York cultural authority. In line with other works on New York, but more cleanly and clearly articulated and supported with well chosen facts, Bender identifies three cultural authorities loosely suceeding one another after the Revolution.

First, The Patrician as exemplified by De Witt Clinton as both a powerful politician who 'qualified' as an authority, and who was a member of and directed cultural institutions. Next, the Common Man came during the Jacksonian era where cultural authority was seized by the common man a la Whitman. During this period, Barnum's American Museum offered all citizens the opportunity to visually inspect a 'promiscuous' collection of artifacts and allowed them to decide on its significance and importance. Commercial values predominated and, at least early on, this approach was a renuciation of the patriciate.

Then came as the Civil War drew closer, the era of the 'Professional Authorities' such as F.L. Olmsted and Samuel F.B. Morse (who as founder of the National Academy of Design as a professional organization in 1826, an early example of the doings of the "metropolitan gentry' who endorsed and promoted the Professional Authority. Other examples include E.L. Godkin, founder of The Nation and who decried the 'large body of persons' taught by common schools, lyceum lectures, small colleges,newspapers "who firmly believe that they have reached in the matter of social, mental and moral culture, all that is attainable or desirable by anybody, and who, therefore, tackle all the problems of the day." The result he insisted was "a kind of mental and moral chaos," presumably of the middle class. The Metropolitan Gentry who founded the Metropolitan Museum, by contrast, established clear categories on its objects -- unlike Barnum's populist American Museum. One supposes we're still in the era of the Professional Authority and the Metropolitan Gentry here in New York. More's the pity.

Bender's periodization was of particular interest to me, but there is much more here than the historical, including architectural, cultural and political perspectives, all of which Bender intersects in fascinating and original ways. Highly readable and insightful.

Whether you know nothing about New York, or think you know it all, this eloquent book will nourish your love and broaden your embrace of the City.

This compilation of essays about the culture, history, and concept of New York City is both thought-provoking and passionate. But be warned: this is no Introduction to New York History 101 book, and definitely should not find itself on the top of any coffee table. This is a studious and sophisticated account of Gotham's fluid and, as the title states, unending role in the modern world's intellectual and cultural history. Fortunately, Professor Bender's ideas are clearly and reasonably presented, making for smooth reading.

One of the major riffs throughout the pieces is that because New York City was relieved of the duty of being the nation's capital, and because of the new talent and diversity that free market capitalism attracts and needs, the city has always been at the forefront of America's and the world's aesthetic and technological development. These elements also make the city so chimeric that it's never the same city from one day to the next. (Unfortunately, the events of 9/11/01 would seem to refute this. Those terrorists and their backers saw the city as the fixed center of America's wealth, greed, and power. Professor Bender's introduction acknowledges that the effects to New York of that day are still unknowable.)

This critical examination into the world that is New York is not only testimony its greatness, but also to the pride and passion Professor Bender has for it.

Collection of distinct but companionable articles by Bender (Humanities/NYU) assessing New York City as a multiplicity of public places and institutions in flux and very much sui generis. New York, the author finds, sits outside the metropolitan idea. Unlike Paris or Vienna, it has not assumed national centrality and leadership in political and cultural matters; it doesn't realize and standardize the best hopes for the American polity. This, he figures, is because the city is continually in the making: unresolved, or resolved only temporarily. In its physical development and social organization it refuses a single logic, preferring a self-fashioned pluralism that is pragmatic, unpredictable, nonhierarchical. "The center has never held firmly in New York," Bender writes. "It has been continually undermined by fragmentation of the elite and by manifold rebellions." That has consequences for better and worse. Aspiringly democratic, polyvalent, and vibrant in architecture, politics, and art, the city is a place where, as Virgil Thomson observed, one group could argue "esthetics with intelligence and politics with a passion" while the other discussed "esthetics with passion and politics with intelligence." But New York lacks an image of itself as a collectivity; it has no representative institutions and lacks a civic culture in which "the public space is the terrain of the public as visual representation, while institutions provide a place for representative political deliberation." Bender (Intellect and Public Life, not reviewed, etc.) brings wide-ranging curiosity, literacy, and experience in urban matters to the question of New York, from the iconography of the Brooklyn Bridge and its rolein urban reconfiguration to the dialectical relationship between the city's horizontal, civic impulses and its vertical, corporate ones. There are persistent issues, including the city's racial divisions, but "New York's character is to be incomplete." A meaty and satisfying look at a great city, its multiple environments, and their unending transformations. (b&w photos throughout)

The Unifinished City (New York and the Metropolitan Idea) works as a series of independant essays (as it was written) but also pulls together beautifully as a major look at a city, specifically New York but more generically at cities in general in the book's final chapters. The author's, Thomas Bender, view is expansive and always intellectually sound as it ranges from architecture to Walt Whitman to cultural politics to Beat poets to democracy and to universities, and these are only a few of the ideas integrated smoothly into the book. Some of the concepts may be a little difficult for the uninitiated (myself, at times) but the writing is so smart and clear that the reader will fall into place quickly enough. A wonderful book and one of the best examinations of New York to be encountered.