Back to the future: New histories of New York in a new age of inequality

Some books are reviewed which look at the new histories of New York in a new age lf inequality. Joanne Reitano's The Restless City packs a powerful punch, cataloging the political, social, and economic conflicts that have made and remade Gotham over four hundred years with rapid-fire concision. From the colonists' Stamp Act riots and the rise of the Workingman's Party through to the Depression's rent strikes and the battles over the Vietnam War in City Hall Park, Reitano elucidates the ways in which rapid, uneven development generated wealth and opportunity for some while encouraging others to organize and protest. In New York at War, Steven Jaffe offers a different synthesis of turmoil. Prompted by his experiences of September 11, 2001, Jaffe considers the city's role as a citadel, arsenal, and target over four centuries. Mason B. Williams' City of Ambition is a decidedly original and enlightening interpretation of the New Deal in New York. Williams shows how the New Deal's focus on providing work, and not just ameliorative necessities, was a unique product of the social forces and political limits of this era. In Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings, Brian Purnell explores the triumphs and tribulations of one of the best-known but least-understood organizations in this fight, the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).