Like the city it celebrates, Gotham is massive and endlessly fascinating. This narrative of well over 1,000 pages, written after more than two decades of collaborative research by history professors Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, copiously chronicles New York City from the primeval days of the Lenape Indians to the era when, with Teddy Roosevelt as police commissioner, the great American city became regarded as "Capital of the World." The sheer bulk of the book may be off- putting, but the reader can use a typically New York approach: Those who don't settle in for the entire history can easily "commute" in and out to read individual chapters, which stand alone nicely and cover the major themes of particular eras very well.

While Gotham is fact-laden (with a critical apparatus that includes a bibliography and two indices--one for names, another for subjects), the prose admirably achieves both clarity and style. "What is our take, our angle, our schtick?" ask the authors, setting a distinctly New York tone in their introduction. No matter what it's called, their method of weaving together countless stories works wonderfully. The startlingly detailed research and lively writing bring innumerable characters (from Peter Minuit to Boss Tweed) to life, and even those who think they know the history of New York City will no doubt find surprises on nearly every page. Gotham is a rarity, reigning as both authoritative history and page-turning story. --Robert McNamara


From Publishers Weekly
A tome matching the size of its subject, this doorstopper (the first of a two-volume history) more than justifies the 20 years Burrows and Wallace spent on itAnot to mention the space it will take on the nightstands of New Yorkers actual, former, future and presumptive. Its massive size permits the inclusion of details, minor characters and anecdotes of everyday life that vibrantly communicate the city's genesis and evolution. The authors have synthesized histories from various perspectivesAcultural, economic, political, etc.Ainto a novelistic narrative, providing the context for stories of the diverse denizens who shaped the city. Both New York academics (Brooklyn College and CUNY, respectively), Burrows and Wallace have produced a historical work that merits the term "definitive" yet still manages to entertain. Underneath reasoned academic prose lies a populist bent, unflinching in relating ugly events and describing the unsavory behavior of prominent figures; in its original sense, "Gotham" denotes a town of tricksters and fools, and this book is full of both. Vague documentation may, on occasion, frustrate the academic reader, but such quibbles should be left to professional historians. The rest will read with pleasure and await the companion volume's promised appearance in the year 2000. 160 photos and linecuts and 15 maps not seen by PW. 40,000 copy first printing. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
As grand-scale and ambitious as New York City itself, this book was 20 years in the making, but anyone interested in American or urban history will find it worth the wait. The authors, both New York academics, start with the teeming islands and waterways Europeans first encountered in New York harbor and move right up to the consolidation of the five boroughs to create "an imperial city." An almost frightening amount of research went into preparing the highly detailed text, but the result is a real saga that proves why New York is still the greatest city in the world. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Atlantic Monthly, Timothy J. Gilfoyle
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 represents the most comprehensive examination to date of the city's history prior to 1900. Indeed, few historians today attempt synthetic and comprehensive interpretations of this magnitude. The authors weave together the unique details of New York's history with a generation's worth of recent and original scholarship, insightfully reconceptualizing the city's past. With the publication of a second volume (scheduled for 2000, covering the twentieth century, and written by Wallace alone), Gotham may rank in importance with the multi-volume works on Thomas Jefferson by Dumas Malone and on the Civil War by Allan Nevins.


The Economist, December 4, 1999
This gigantic volume marvelously conveys the enterprise and enthusiasm that has fuelled the world's most exciting city from its earliest days.


From Booklist
This Proustian effort, the result of 20 years of research by the authors, is only the first volume of their chronicle of New York--ending with the consolidation of the modern city. (The second volume is scheduled to be published within two years.) By any standard, Burrows and Wallace, history professors at Brooklyn College and John Jay College, CUNY, respectively, have written a comprehensive and highly engrossing political, social, and cultural history of the Big Apple. Their work begins with the lay of the land and its earliest Native American inhabitants and proceeds seamlessly to tell the story of New York City's growth and the expansion of its economic power. They take nothing for granted, whether examining the tale of the sale of Manhattan Island, the roots of various economic depressions, the Civil War draft riots, or the early maneuvering for women's suffrage. All the familiar characters from Peter Minuit and Petrus Stuyvesant to Boss Tweed and J. P. Morgan appear on the grand stage, though the authors instinctively veer from the great man theory whenever possible, describing great women and lesser lights whose actions had profound influence in and beyond the city. It is a strategy that serves them well as they reveal the changing moods of the people and the effects of technological advances on all strata of New York society. Frank Caso

FROM OUR EDITORS

Finally in paperback, this is the monumental history of New York City that The New Yorker has called "Exceptionally readable...a spectacle, a calvacade." The result of a 20-year collaboration, Gotham is clearly a labor of love -- a book to treasure. And the story's not over yet -- Part Two is in the works.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Gotham, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace have written an epic as vast and varied as the city it chronicles. Drawing on the work of hundreds of scholars who have re-examined New York's past, the authors weave together diverse histories -- of sex and sewer systems, finance and architecture, immigration and politics, poetry and crime - into a single narrative tapestry that reads like a fast-paced novel. Readers will relive the tumultuous early years of New Amsterdam under the Dutch, the Indian wars and Peter Stuyvesant's autocratic regime, the English conquest, the rise of slave trading and slave revolts, the invasion and garrisoning of the city during the Revolution. They will watch New York blossom over the 19th century into the country's greatest port, leading manufacturing center, preeminent financial hub, corporate headquarters, and incubator of mass cultural innovations from vaudeville and baseball to Coney Island and the department store. But the real heroes and heroines of Gotham are New Yorkers themselves, and the authors provide mini-biographies of hundreds of individuals, ranging from the world famous to the virtually unknown. The interplay among New York's fiercely heterogeneous citizens was often abrasive, and Gotham recounts the way clashes between immigrants and old-timers, rich and poor, blacks and whites flamed into fierce street battles like the Civil War draft riots. But New Yorkers also forged connections and coalitions -- creating multi-national picket lines, interracial reform movements, and multi-ethnic political tickets. Their fusions and collisions generated tremendous kinetic energy, cultural inventiveness, and a vision of unity-in-diversity that would become a distinctive contribution to world civilization.

FROM THE CRITICS

Ariel Levy - New York Magazine

The fruit of 20 years of collective labor . . . .a whopping 1,416 pages (and it's only the first volume!).

Pete Skinner - ForeWord Magazine

Gotham is monumental but never overwhelming: It is the work of master literary masons. The narrative is Romanesque in its integrity and solidity of structure but reflects a Gothic precision in its detailing...The authors' clear and supple prose brings clarity and strength to their treatment of these basic themes. Their insertion of key data and supporting citations into clean, fast-moving prose is masterful. This is history with a beating heart; the players command the stage, the documentation lurks in the wings...no reader will leave Gotham disappointed...For individuals with any interest at all in New York City, this book is an unbeatable investment in knowledge and reward.

Entertainment Weekly

...[A] novelistic narrative...

Timothy J. Gilfoyle

The city's complexity has frightened...historians....few historians today attempt synthetic and comprehensive interpretations of this magnitude....persuasively argue that New York was "crucially shaped by...an evolving global economy" from its foundingas New Amsterdamin 1626....For Burrows and Wallace...New York's story is the nation's. —The Atlantic Monthly

Tom Vanderbilt - L.A. Times Book Review

In their colossal history of New York from its founding until 1898, authors Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace present New York as a city where a sense ofpalce is best understood through time....the narrative of Gotham hovers over the city, drifting along thematic currecnt, occasionally catching a cataclysmic gust; it drops in for a vivid close-up only to reascend, with equal aplomb, for a global panorama.Read all 10 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Kenneth T. Jackson

An epic narrative worthy of the world's greatest city, Gotham is a marvelously-written and sweeping book that is based throughout on the latest scholarship. — Editor-in-Chief, The Encyclopedia of New York City

I was transported back in time. I was fascinated as door after door was mentally opened as I turned page after page. I have never read a book that tells so interestingly who we are and how we got where we are. — Brooke Astor

Gotham is a masterpiece. It is the best history of New York City ever written. It will be read a century from now. — Edward Robb Ellis

If you thought you knew something about the city of New York, think again. Gotham is a page-turner, a fascinating, dramatic and compelling tale of the world's greatest city. You will not walk its streets again without calling to mind the stories that make New York what it is today. The authors have given us a history as real and palpable as if the events just occurred. It is a stunning work. — Jane Alexander