The Restless City: A Short History of New York from Colonial Times to the Present

by Joanne Reitano

New York has always been a bellwether for the nation, representing both its brightest ambitions and its darkest fears. The Restless City is a short, readable history of New York City, from colonial times to the present, showing how the successes and struggles of the city reinforced each other to create a distinctly dynamic, shocking, and therefore influential city.
Organized around conventional time periods, each chapter provides an introduction to the era, followed by four or five mini-essays on different economic, political, social, or cultural conflicts that impacted NYC in that time period. This would make a great short text for a course on New York history, or on urban history and the development of the American city.

Genres: History

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Joanne Reitano is professor emerita of history at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY.

Reviews

[Joyce]

New Yorkers have apparently been a different breed since the beginning, probably because more than the residents of any other American city they are forced to live cheek-by-jowl with all types of people. Propinquity leads to tolerance, creativity, and liberalism -- but it also leads to competition, frustration, and crime. This book could have been titled "New York: Riot by Riot" because New Yorkers apparently worked out their class, race, gender, and political issues through the centuries largely by rioting with regularity and brutality.

Over time the open affrays became tamed somewhat into labor actions, rent strikes, and passive-aggressive letters to the editor... but the threat of sudden violence in tight quarters has never been far from the collective imagination of New Yorkers and their observers. Some of the greatest achievements of American cinema -- _Taxi Driver_, _Escape from New York_, _The Warriors_, _Gangs of New York_ -- are spectacular expressions of these fears.

The author is fair-minded at recounting accomplishments and conflicts, but you can tell her sympathies are more with the New York symbolized by Emma Goldman than that of Rudy Guiliani. I'm going to search around and see if she's written anything on the Occupy Wall Street movement, because I'd like to know if she thinks of it as a strong link in the chain of New York class conflict -- or going out with a whimper rather than a bang.

[kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Part high school essay and part dry encyclopedia. Couldn't get past 15 pages.

Could be seriously improved by losing all the sentences that begin, "like the city of new york itself, [such and such person] was both typical and unique [or some other tiresome paradox]." (Again, only read 15 pages, but I swear I read at least 15 sentences like this.)

I really want to read a good history of NYC, though, so I'd appreciate any suggestions for a better book.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew, finally finished this. Not a super long book, but very dense and written in a more academic style, so hard to get through. Glad I did though, learned lots and I liked how the author focused on the popular movements, protests and politics. Although by the end I was very finished reading about riots.
Puts the current Occupy Wall Street protest in perspective though.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for anyone seeking to write about, discuss, or understand the dynamic history of NYC.

[columbialion · Rating 3 out of 5]

Condensed history of my town