New York Books

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.

The book arrived in awesome condition and it is a classic I never had the opportunity to read in younger years.

I thoroughly enjoyed this family and their lives.

A marvelous read; everyone should be required to read this wonderful, heartfelt story.

With joy and regret I finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the tale of the Nolan family (and the Romelly women too). Started by eleven-year-old bookworm Francie Nolan and told by her younger and older selves, this book is rich with all the truth and tragedy of life at the turn of the century. Francie, born sickly and never quite getting enough food, thirsts for knowledge and in ways that she doesn't understand, love. Katie, her mother is a hardened and hard-working scrub woman who takes care of the family when her drunk but handsome husband is between jobs, which is most of the time. Though Francie and her father are very different, he understands her in a way that her mother can't and her brother Neely won't.

On each page, there is something rich about the Brooklyn in all of us, the stingy place where we nail down our best dreams in tin cup banks and pray that something amazing grows out of the often sour soil of our lives. Francis and her family remind us that are many things in the world more important than money. This one goes on my "Books for Life" list. It's a keeper to be read over and over.

I've read this book twice in my life, and am thinking of picking it up again. I can still "see" the scenes from the book, and remember how I felt at each part. One of the best books I've ever read, definitely in my top 10. A book that stays with you and becomes a point of reference in how you see the world.

Yes, that good.

I am a guy in his 30s who has nothing in common with a prepubescent girl living in Brooklyn in the early 1900.I should have hated this book: I usually cringe when I see stuff like 'Emma' lying around the place.
But........I loved this book. I actually had to ration that book, so that I would not finish it in a day. I would read 50 pages a day and forcibly keep the rest. Its a beautiful tale of the girl coming of age and with harsh terms of life.Its nothing short of a classic.
My wife has actually BOUGHT a copy to keep.
5 stars!

this story is about a terribly poor family living in Brooklyn, New York, at the turn of the 19th century. As technology advances and the American industry booms, a quiet, profound little girl called Francie Nolan lives in the slums of Brooklyn with her brother Neeley and her parents, Johnny and Katie.

the novel begins with a view into Francie's world, of pennies saved and trash collected to earn them, the thin food and delightful stores; the libraries, the other tenants in Francie's apartment building.

Betty Smith tells as much about Francie's parents, Johnny and Katie, as about Francie herself. We learn about how Johnny and Katie met, their whirlwind romance, soon falling out of the light as Katie bears children. Johnny, who is a kind, merry,friendly, impossibly handsome boy, starts abusing alcohol as domestic pressures fall upon his shoulders. Katie, a pretty girl, is much tougher than Johnny, and works from dawn to dusk in order to support her family, as Johnny, as lovable and sweet as he is, is not the main breadwinner of the house.

We learn about Katie's sisters, Sissy and Evy, Francie's beloved aunts, pretty and tender and smart. Sissy, the man-crazy but fun and fantastically compassionate, and Evy, capable and refined, fun, and a wonderful storyteller of past events. Mary Rommely, their mother, who is saintly and understanding, clever and wise. Betty Smith tells everything about these girls, the Rommely girls, with their soft voices and the "invisible steel" in them, about their past and present situations, and they all play major roles in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Francie is a smart, resourceful child and an avid reader. She is a talented writer, and is the favorite of her father. On the other hand, is her little brother Neeley, the favorite of their mother since his birth. They grow together, and you'll read about their exploits, and what everyone, even random people, think as they pass in and out of the Nolans' lives. What the tree-man thinks when he throws a tree at Francie and Neeley, what little boys think as they watch a horse, what Katie feels about her chidren, making plans about their unbringing and telling herself that she must not let Francie see that she loves Neeley much more than Francie, whom she only loves as a dutiful mother. (which, by the way, she fails miserably. About letting Francie know, i mean.)

The books protrays Francie from the time she is born to when she is nearly seventeen and leaving for college. About her academic life, the bitterness and grief when Johnny dies, the Nolans' fears about money and food.

Betty Smith is an expert on the perspectives of people. She has a wonderful idea of what people think, and why they do things. An great example of this is when she tells us about Joanna, a girl who gives birth to an illegitimate child, and the real reason why women despised her.

This was a fantastic book, and i definitely recommend it to readers.

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....

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.

Tess Slesinger's The Unpossessed (1934), her only novel, published when she was only 29, is so bright, so playfully and angrily intellectual, so intelligently experimental, so sharp and sensitive, satirical and forgiving, and unforgiving. It is a condemnation of the generation older than her, although it seems written by someone much older, and it is certainly not sympathetic to the younger. It is dark, and gets darker and darker, especially in terms of intellectuals and the wealthy they depend on, their isolation mentally, physically, and emotionally, even from themselves. It's such a tragedy that so wise a woman, who could write such incredible sentences,turned instead to screenplays, and then died young.

With her keen ability to delve into human psychology, Tess Slesinger is a worthy successor to Henry James and Virginia Woolf. Oops! I hope I haven't ruined this book for the general reader because--once you get beyond the first fifteen pages or so and catch on to what Slesinger is up to--you won't put the book down. In terms of literary Modernism and the writing craft, Slesinger builds on the accomplishments of Woolf and James, two of the acknowledged masters of interior psychological processes: Tess Slesinger adds wit, irony, and charm. And, she is thoroughly American in the pace and comedic timing of her work--the very *sound* of this novel is American.

To the general reader, I would say that The Unpossessed is not a consciously arty, literary novel. I'm convinced that there was no other way to write this work, no way to say what had to be said in any technique or structure other than the one in which Tess Slesinger wrote it. The author wanted to approximate reality, modern 1930's life (Depression Era, intellectual activism), and to exactly recreate each character's thoughts. To do that, Slesinger, like Woolf, had to master the use of parentheses and italics in order to show simultaneous thoughts, to show what characters are thinking when another character is speaking. Italics and parenthetical statements are necessary to give the reader the feeling of real life--as lived in the moment. And because every person is so mentally active, each has an interior consciousness which they bring to bear on the social predicament.

In Bruno Leonard, Slesinger has given us a university professor who is as idiosyncratic and witty as they come--the type of erudite, gentleman intellectual who has been largely killed off by mass delivery of education in the new diploma factories. And, in Elizabeth Leonard, Bruno's cousin, we have a young woman who is as engaging as she is sexy and mixed up. The "Black Sheep"--Emmett Middleton, and Cornelia and Firman--are as timeless as any intelligent, active college students frustrated with the times in which they live (with the poverty of the Depression Era, and the unequal sharing of wealth in the U.S.). They are genuinely hoping that the work of Karl Marx can show Americans a way toward a more just society. Emmett Middleton seems to be the stable, moral center of The Unpossessed.

In terms of language and style, The Unpossessed approaches poetry. In Slesinger's characteristically poignant and biting prose, she writes from inside Emmett's conflicted consciousness, "Emmett had hated the word 'business' since he was three years old; it came out of his father's mouth tobacco-stained and dry, slightly nasal; the combination of the zz sound with the n went the wrong way up his nostrils like burning sulphur off a kitchen match. 'He s-says I look too much like a girl scout for his racket anyway.' He thought with relief how since knowing Bruno he had relinquished the vain attempt to gain his father's approbation" (139).

Slesinger's willingness to let the English language carry her into poetic realms makes The Unpossessed soar above the polemical novel; her work has humor and grace in it. To be so young as Tess, so aware of the interior of the human soul, to write only one novel--and then to die so young!

And, dear reader, don't be led astray or fooled by Slesinger's at-times cool, emotionally distant prose. Underneath--and running throughout--is a plea from the heart: Intellectuals and activists must connect to life; while we are reading Engels and Marx and examining the direction of our nation, we must allow life to happen. Yes, be an intellectual with integrity, commit to a cause and be active with it--but go ahead, fall in love, get married, have a baby. These are not bourgeois concepts. They are life, too.

Finally, I don't know why this novel isn't on every undergraduate reading list along with Fitzgerald and Hemingway. This is truly a 20th-century masterpiece--and suitable for the times in which we live.

I knew within the first five pages of this book that I was going to love it. This is because Tess Slesinger's writing is beautiful and atmospheric. The narrator is third person omniscient, so we get a range of character's points of view in a flowing fashion. In this way it is similar to narrative like Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.

The basic premise is that there are these Greenwich Village leftists who want to start up a communist newsletter. This, however, is merely the basis for the larger group interactions. There are also deep dysfunctional relationships between the couples that make up the larger group and the shiftiing dynamic between man and woman. This novel looks hard at the mind of a woman of the time and what it is that she wants and whether or not she even knows what she wants anymore. It also looks at the men around them and how they percieve these "new" and "independant" women. It is a fascinating look at the relationship between the sexes.

I recommend getting not this verison, but the Feminist Press version because the Feminist Press edition has a very interesting forward.

We read this book for our book club. The first half is tough--it was challenging to get into the rhythm of the glib repartee, double meanings and quirky jargon, much less get all the characters straight. Then, at about the halfway point, the group convenes for a meeting, and it's off to the races!! Slesinger has (OK, had) a remarkable flair for capturing the times, a remarkable ear for dialog, and a grand ability to skewer different "types" with deadly accuracy. The climax of the book is a party scene you'll never forget--picturing the shabbily dressed baby-communist collegians rubbing elbows with wealthy society mavens who are ignorant of the cause they find themselves supporting still cracks me up--a very rich and VERY funny novel.

Try this passage, not quite at random:

"`I'm the Bruno Leonard all-purpose one-man three-ring self-kidding self-perpetuating exhibitionistic circus divided like all Gaul into partes tres. One part sour grapes, one part wish-fulfillment, nine parts subconscious. And the greatest of these, according to the antediluvian Chinese, is the subconscious. This way, ladies and pessimistic gents, for the J. J. stream-line crooner, for old Doc Leonard the campaigning fool, watch hin frisk, watch him scamper, watch him catch his fleas in public. Don't feed him peanuts feed him opiates, buy your tablets at the gate from Miss Diamond who has given many years of service, who sacrificed her vacations, her virtue, that this firm might go on.' He subsided, to his own relief; collapsed into the chair that Nora drew up for him. `To sex and its many ramifications,' he said, and raised his glass."

Okay, it is out of context. But in context or out, I defy anyone to catch all the layers of meaning there, at least not on first reading. It's not precisely obscure (although I don't think I catch everything), not Joycean or Kafkaesque. It's more like a James Wood movie monologue: the narrator has no skin at all and she process on six channels at once, certainly the quickest-witted observer you could want to imagine. Or a "Simpsons" tape, where you know you will catch something new at second look, and some of the music gags will still go clean on past you.

Try it again for the rhythm. Can you get it? I cannot quite, but I am pretty sure it is there: all gnarly and snarky, all elbows and knees, a mind and a sensibility all its own. Just to get in the swing of things, I found I had to read it out loud, but no matter: it was better that way, and it lasted longer.

Tess Slesinger subtitles it "A Novel of the Thirties," and that it is: an attempt at clear-eyed observation of her cronies and adversaries among leftwing New York intellectuals at the bottom of the Depression. She dedicated it "to my contemporaries." Elizabeth Hardwick, in her introduction to the NYRB edition, calls it "a kindly act of intellectual friendship," and that it is not-indeed Hardwick's is one of the wildest misjudgments I can possibly imagine. It may be "friendship" in that she cares enough about these people that she wishes she could save them. But it is not in the least way kindly. Rather, this is an act of prophecy: a calling down of God's (if there is a God) wrath upon a wayward Greenwich Village by one who loved it a great deal but understood it - to her dismay - even better. It's rich, it's full of life and it is tainted with the acrid aroma of doom. What a talent. What a sensibility. What an experience, as energetic and refractory as any novel you will read for a long time. Tess Slesinger died in 1945 at the age of 39. She never wrote another.

I purchased this book as a supplement to a classroom play that I do every year on the General Slocum disaster of 1904. Most people don't realize that this was the worst disaster to hit NY until 9/11 but few if any have heard about it. Rather than weigh the reader down with technical details, it gives a heart-wrenching account from the main character's pov (who is dead) of the senseless acts that went on before and right after the burning of the ship. Although not completely accurate, it may get some kids reading more about this forgotten travesty. As a complement book, read, Ship Ablaze, which is a non-fiction account and also extremely good.

The Unresolved is a deceptively slim book about an actual historical tragedy. In 1904 fire on the steamboat General Slocum killed more than 1000 people, mostly woman and children, mostly German immigrants, on New York's East River. Many people suffered, and many people were to blame.

In this novel by T. K. Welsh, the spirit of one of the dead, Mallory Meer, is unable to rest until she uncovers the reasons for the disaster. Mallory, as a spirit, isn't very strongly anchored in time, and her thoughts and experiences drift backwards and forwards in a somewhat stream-of-consciousness manner. For example (from page 2):

"My name is Mallory Meer. I'd turned fifteen the week before, and in an hour -- thanks to the only boy I've ever loved -- I would be dead.

I float around the white memorial in Middle Village, Queens, among the other insubstantial figures. We are the unidentified remembered -- the unknown, unforgotten victims of the General Slocum who continue, unresolved, like Tantalus, to grasp at something slightly out of reach."

Mallory travels through time and space, haunting the survivors and those culpable in the disaster, though most don't know that she's there. She learns things about their backgrounds, and their actions, and gradually pieces together the chain of events that led to so many unnecessary deaths. But it's a difficult non-life for Mallory, visiting with person after person, reliving traumatic events over and over again, and trying to communicate with the living.

This book is a haunting chronicle of the ways things can go wrong, one decision at a time, and the way people hide from the truth, and lie to protect themselves. There are also interesting tidbits about immigrant life in New York, and the way that breweries work. Although the writing style takes getting used to, I found the story riveting, and read it in a single sitting. I recommend it for fans of historical fiction, especially mysteries, and fans of ghost stories.

This book review was originally published on my blog, Jen Robinson's Book Page, on February 3, 2007.

Before the tragic events of 9/11, the greatest disaster in New York history was the fire aboard the General Slocum steamship in 1904, killing more than a thousand people on a church outing. Welsh's fictionalized account is narrated by the ghost of one of the victims, fifteen-year-old Mallory Meer. Her boyfriend Dustin Brauer, the Jewish son of a beer brewer, is accused of starting the fire, and he and his father are persecuted by the Lutheran German community of Kleindeutschland. Mallory's spirit and soul will not rest until justice is achieved. As the story of Dustin's alleged involvement in the fire spreads, the anti-Semitic and bigoted views of his neighbors are exposed. A unique and spooky departure from the typical historical novel, The Unresolved, while disturbing and haunting, is also compelling and captivating.

Mallory Meer turns fifteen the week before she boards a steamship in 1904 on what will be her last voyage before the steamship burns and kills her and a thousand others. Yet she lingers, a ghost, unable to leave her love or family until the fire's setters are brought to justice. Turn-of-the-century Manhattan comes to life in a wonderfully different kind of ghost story.

Mallory Meer, 13-year old Lutheran German immigrant, dies on the deck of the General Slocum, a steamship, as she sails up the East River during a church outing, in New York, 1904. We learn this in the first paragraph of The Unresolved, a mesmerizing, often brilliant new historical YA novel by T.K. Welsh. Of the 1,200 or so who set sail that fateful summer morning, over a thousand perished: drowned or burned to death aboard the blazing General Slocum. Mallory keeps a rendezvous with a beautiful young teenage boy named Dustin Brauer, a poor kid, and Jewish, with whom she shares her first kiss ... and it is he who is blamed for the disaster by the grieving citizenry of Kleindeutchland, on Manhattan's lower east side, as they struggle to cope with the loss of their loved ones.
Caught in that netherspace between this world and the next, there is no place where Mallory belongs. She cannot remain, now that she dangles upside down from those shipboards, and quite dead, burned black and in pieces - all now that remains of the General Slocum. Nor can she finally move on - though she'd like to - to that other space, until those responsible for the tragedy are exposed, judged and punished, the dead finally avenged, and her hunger to linger with Dustin dissolves.
There is a public trial. None of the ship's safety measures lived up to their promise. Life vests disintegrated as they soaked up sea water, dragging the desperate who wore them down to a watery grave. Fire hoses burst like overstuffed sausages. The lifeboats were lashed to the deck, contemptuously rigid, uncompromising. The crew was both cowardly and untrained. Those responsible were indicted and ultimately paraded before a public inquest by the city coroner, cross-examined and often found guilty. In the end, however, it was only the captain who fell, the tastiest of lambs, already cooked by the fire.
And there is a private trial, as Dustin - the sad, handsome boy Mallory loves - is reviled as the cause of the tragedy, and the rest of his family are disgraced and debased by the anti-Semitic community.
The Unresolved is a story of a love that's so great the rupture of death cannot break it. It's a story of a girl's spirit, unresolved yet resilient, betwixt this and what follows; neither child nor adult; neither lover nor friend. It's a story of the ultimate outsider.
What a startling, evocative and promising debut! The Unresolved, T.K. Welsh's first novel for young adults, is at turns mesmerizing, breathtaking, informative, entertaining, heart-breaking and redemptive. Clearly constructed upon a platform of exhaustive research, you will soar upon its language, while feeling yourself drawn downward, downward, into the dark whirlpool of this beautiful new novel. Set in the 1904 German immigrant community of Kleindeutchland, on Manhattan's lower east side, Mallory Meer's dark, curious world is yours for the page-turning. A must for any teenage girl, aged 13+, who likes historical fiction, who feels uncertain of her place in the world, and who has ever been in love.