Noteworthy
recent books
We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante
Eve Pell
SUNY Press We Used to Own the Bronx tells the story of a woman born into the
proprieties of an East Coast dynasty who nevertheless leaves her world of
privilege for a career as an investigative reporter. Recounting her upbringing,
Eve Pell offers an inside look at the bizarre values and customs of the American
aristocracy, from debutante balls and the belowstairs hierarchy of the servant
class to the fanatical pursuit of blood sports and private mens clubs whose
members were cared for like sultans. In the patriarchal world of the upper
crust, girls were expected to flatter and defer to boys and men: her
scholar-athlete sister was offered a racehorse if she would refuse to attend
college. A parade of eccentrics populates the book, from the cockfighting
stepfather who ran away from boarding school with a false beard and a stolen
motorcycle to the Brahmin great-uncle who secretly organized the servants in
Tuxedo Park to vote for Teddy Roosevelt.
But as she moved beyond the narrow world she was expected to inhabit, Pell
encountered people and ideas that brought her into conflict with her past.
Equally unconventional are the muckrakers and revolutionaries she met in the
1960s and 1970s, and her subsequent adventures and misadventures while working
with radical activists to reform the California prison system. As Pell traces
her absorbing journey from debutante to working mother, from the upper crust of
the East Coast to the radical activists of the West, from a life of wealth and
privilege to one of trying to make ends meet, she provides exceptional insight
into the prickly and complex issues of social class in America.
Knickerbocker: The Myth behind New York
Elizabeth L. Bradley
Rutgers University Press
Deep within New Yorks compelling,
sprawling history lives an odd, ornery
Manhattan native named Diedrich
Knickerbocker. The name may be familiar
today: his story gave rise to
generations of popular tributesfrom a
beer brand to a basketball team and
morebut Knickerbocker himself has been
forgotten. In fact, he was New Yorks
first truly homegrown chronicler, and as
a descendant
of the Dutch settlers, he singlehandedly
tried to reclaim the city for the Dutch.
Almost singlehandedly, that is.
Diedrich Knickerbocker was created in
1809 by a young Washington Irving, who
used the character to narrate his
classic satire, A History of New
York. According to Irvings
partisan narrator, everything good and
distinctive, proud and powerful, about
New York Cityfrom the doughnuts to the
twisting streets of lower
Manhattancould be traced back to New
Amsterdam.
Knickerbocker engagingly traces
the creation, evolution, and prevalence
of Irvings imaginary historian in New
York literature and history, art and
advertising, from the early nineteenth
century to the present day. Who would
imagine this satiric character, at once
a snob and a champion of the people,
would endure for two hundred years? In
Elizabeth L. Bradleys words, Whether
you call it blood, style, attitude, or
moxie, the little Dutchman could
deliver. And, from this engaging work,
it is clear that he does.
Bradleys stunning volume offers a
surprising and delightful glimpse behind
the scenes of New York history, and
invites readers into the world of
Knickerbocker, the antihero who
surprised everyone by becoming the
standard-bearer for the citys
exceptional sense of self, or what we
now call a New York attitude.
My River Chronicles: Rediscovering
the Work that Built America; A Personal
and Historical Journey
Jessica DuLong
Free Press
In 2001, journalist Jessica DuLong
ditched her dot-com desk job for the
diesel engines of a rusty antique
fireboat, the John J. Harvey, and the
storied waters of the Hudson River. My
River Chronicles: Rediscovering America
on the Hudson tells the story of this
mechanic's daughter and Stanford
graduate who had left her blue-collar
upbringing behind until the fireboat
drew her back, offering a chance to
become an engineer and a taste of home
she hadn't realized she was missing.
The more time DuLong spent toiling in
the engine room, running the boat's
finely crafted machinery, the more she
wondered what America is losing in our
shift away from handson work. These
questions crystallized in the aftermath
of the September 11, 2001, attacks, when
the FDNY called the retired fireboat
back into service, and DuLong and the
rest of the boat's civilian crew pumped
water to fight blazes at Ground Zero. As
blue-collar workers clambered on the
pile, DuLong was struck by the dignity
of physical labor and the honor of
having joined the world of skilled labor
whose talents were useful at the site.
DuLong brings her two worlds vibrantly
to life in this beautifully written
memoir that evokes the vitality of New
York City's bygone working waterfront
and the Hudson River, a birthplace of
American industry. Blending four
centuries of Hudson River history with
unforgettable present-day characters and
events, DuLong offers a porthole-view
narrative of the river and its social
tapestry as a microcosm of
postindustrial America. As she tracks
changes along the shoreline, where
industrial sites give way to
recreational respites, a celebration of
American labor and craftsmanship
emerges. While searching along the
river's edge for the meaning of work in
America, DuLong pays homage to our
industrial past and raises important
questions about the future at this
pivotal moment in our national story.
My River Chronicles is a journey with an
extraordinary guide, a woman who bridges
blue-collar and white-collar worlds and
turns a phrase as deftly as she does a
wrench. Soulful and illuminating, My
River Chronicles is a deeply personal
story of a unique woman's discovery of
her own roots -- and America's -- as she
runs the fireboat's diesels on the
ever-changing river that flows both
ways.
Along
the Hudson and Mohawk: The 1790 Journey
of Count Paolo Andreani
Cesare Marino and Karim M. Tiro, Editors
and Translators
University of Pennsylvania Press
In the summer of 1790 the Italian
explorer Count Paolo Andreani embarked
on a journey that would take him through
New York State and eastern Iroquoia.
Traveling along the Hudson and Mohawk
Rivers, Andreani kept a meticulous
record of his observations and
experiences in the New World. Published
complete for the first time in English,
the diary is of major importance to
those interested in life after the
American Revolution, political affairs
in the New Republic, and Native American
peoples.
Through Andreani's writings, we
glimpse a world in cultural, economic,
and political transition. An active
participant in Enlightenment science,
Andreani provides detailed observations
of the landscape and natural history of
his route. He also documents the manners
and customs of the Iroquois, Shakers,
and German, Dutch, and Anglo New
Yorkers. Andreani was particularly
interested in the Oneida and Onondaga
Indians he visited, and his description
of an Oneida lacrosse match accompanies
the earliest known depiction of a
lacrosse stick. Andreani's American
letters, included here, relate his
sometimes difficult but always revealing
personal relationships with Washington,
Jefferson, and Adams.
Prefaced by an illuminating
historical and biographical
introduction, Along the Hudson and
Mohawk is a fascinating look at the New
Republic as seen through the eyes of an
observant and curious explorer.
Cesare Marino is an anthropologist
with the Smithsonian Institution. His
books include The Sioux Vocabulary of
1823, Dal Piave at Little Bighorn, and
The Remarkable Carlo Gentile, Pioneer
Italian Photographer of the West. Karim
M. Tiro teaches history at Xavier
University.
(from UPenn Press' description)
|
The
Colony of New Netherland: A
Dutch Settlement in
Seventeenth-Century America
Jaap JacobsThe Dutch
involvement in North America
started after Henry Hudson,
sailing under a Dutch flag in
1609, traveled up the river that
would later bear his name. The
Dutch control of the region was
short-lived, but had profound
effects on the Hudson Valley
region. In The Colony of New
Netherland, Jaap Jacobs offers a
comprehensive history of the
Dutch colony on the Hudson from
the first trading voyages in the
1610s to 1674, when the Dutch
ceded the colony to the English.
As Jacobs shows, New
Netherland offers a distinctive
example of economic colonization
and in its social and religious
profile represents a noteworthy
divergence from the English
colonization in North America.
Centered around New Amsterdam on
the island of Manhattan, the
colony extended north to
present-day Schenectady, New
York, east to central
Connecticut, and south to the
border shared by Delaware, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania,
leaving an indelible imprint on
the culture, political
geography, and language of the
early modern mid-Atlantic
region. Dutch colonists' vivid
accounts of the land and people
of the area shaped European
perceptions of this bountiful
land; their own activities had a
lasting effect on land use and
the flora and fauna of New York
State, in particular, as well as
on relations with the Native
people with whom they traded.
Sure to become readers' first
reference to this crucial phase
of American early colonial
history, The Colony of New
Netherland is a multifaceted and
detailed depiction of life in
the colony, from exploration and
settlement through governance,
trade, and agriculture. Jacobs
gives a keen sense of the built
environment and social relations
of the Dutch colonists and
closely examines the influence
of the church and the social
system adapted from that of the
Dutch Republic. Although Jacobs
focuses his narrative on the
realities of quotidian existence
in the colony, he considers that
way of life in the broader
context of the Dutch Atlantic
and in comparison to other
European settlements in North
America.
(From Cornell University Press) |