With 20-odd candidates for mayor it ain’t exactly decision time yet. But it is reading time! What books are folks turning to in order to better understand what this place is all about (and to gird themselves for the onslaught of “new” ideas — neighborhood schools! community-led planning! middle-class yadda-yadda! — to come)?
Besides the usual suspects (Lukas’s “Common Ground” and the Thomas O’Connor catalog), here’s what I’ve got for books that either look specifically at politics/policy in Boston or use Boston to illuminate broader themes (a partial list in no particular order):
- Pierre Clavel, “Activists in City Hall: The Progressive Response to the Reagan Era in Boston and Chicago” (2010)
- Mel King, “Chain of Change: Struggles for Black Community Development” (1981)
- James Jennings and Mel King (eds.), “From Access to Power: Black Politics in Boston” (1996)
- Lawrence Vale, “From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors” (2000)
- James Green and Hugh Donahue, “Boston’s Workers: A Labor History” (1979)
- Alan Lupo, “Liberty’s Chosen Home: the Politics of Violence in Boston” (1977)
- Alan Lupo, Frank Colcord and Edmund P. Fowler, “Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and the U.S. City” (1971)
- Hillel Levine and Lawrence Harmon, “Death of an American Jewish Community: A Tragedy of Good Intentions” (1993)
- Gerald Gamm, “Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed” (2001)
- Dick Lehr, “The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston’s Racial Divide” (2009)
- Lawrence Kennedy: “Planning the City Upon a Hill: Boston Since 1630″ (1994)
- John Mollenkopf, “The Contested City” (1983)
- Herbert Gans, “The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans” (1982)
- Rachel G. Bratt, “Rebuilding a Low-Income Housing Policy” (1989)
- George Higgins, “Style Versus Substance: Boston, Kevin White and the Politics of Illusion” (1984)
Others?
Please share widely!
Have you ever wondered about pirates in Boston, or whether Captain Kidd actually turned up in the Bay State? Do you know about the original Ponzi Schemes or James Otis and the Writs of Assistance? Can you recall when the Great Fires or the Molasses Flood occurred? Are you curious who Johnny Most and Phillis Wheatley were; or how the Green Dragon, Doyle’s, and the Warren Tavern became such notable pubs and meeting places? The answers to these and countless other questions can be found in this valuable reference that tells what happened—and when—in the rich and colorful history of the Hub.
Arranged chronologically with an extensive bibliography, thorough index, and abundant illustrations drawn primarily from the collections of the Bostonian Society, this long overdue, single-volume chronicle of Boston over the centuries provides a unique descriptive history of the city organized as a time line. Jim Vrabel delves into the most significant, entertaining, and unusual events in Boston history, in categories ranging from population, planning, and development, to politics, religion, and social change, to education, the arts, and sports. Drawn from the canon of books on Boston history, media sources, neighborhood historical associations, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Boston Public Library, as well as the Bostonian Society, this compendium of facts, figures, and annual highlights is the only comprehensive and up-to-date compilation of its kind. Here the reader revisits Boston’s most intriguing people, places, and events, from the Algonquin Indians, to the African American Meeting House and Bulfinch’s State House, to the Swan Boats, Blinstrub’s, Cheers, Fenway Park, and the Zakim-Bunker Hill Bridge, to Josiah Quincy, Martin Lomasney, Louise Day Hicks, and Tom Menino.
As authoritative as it is user friendly, When in Boston will prove an indispensable and handy tool for researchers, professionals, history buffs, residents, and tourists alike.
http://www.amazon.com/When-Boston-Time-Line-Almanac/dp/1555536204
The worse for my having been a colleague of Jim’s at the BRA from 2007 to 2009! I was working from one shelf of my bookcase, bolstered by memory, and many of our books are in storage… which tells me that I need to buy a new bookcase and get those books out of the boxes!
old favorites. Even Heidi and Gone with the Wind. Still sorting. Can’t throw anything away. May have to build an annex lined with bookshelves. And even more books on my Nook. It’s a wonder I get the dishes done.
I have a book called The Good City: Writers Explore 21st-century Boston, Emily Heistand and Ande Zellman, eds. It includes essays by a number of Boston-raised writers about the city’s evolution in recent years.
Rebound! by Michael Connolly is about Boston emerging from the busing years and, incongruously, basketball. It covers both the city’s progress and the Celtics during the early Larry Bird years.
In a more historical vein, Stephen Puleo has two books, The Boston Italians and A City So Grand, that explore Boston’s past.
Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball by Howard Bryant (2002)
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell is a fantastic telling of the founding of Boston and the “Shinning City on a Hill” speach (that Ronald Reagan later co-opted). A lot of the Roger Williams ( the “too puritanical for the puritans” guy) and Connecticut as the frontier stuff and Salem versus Boston versus Plymouth stuff as well.
The Rascal King by Jack Beatty. Not the greatest read ever, but a fascinating look at James Michael Curley’s life and the changing demographics and politics of the city throughout the first half of the 20th century.
The Clavel book covers an important transition in Boston history, as does the Levine/Harmon book. The Rascal King is tremendous history and might as well read the fictional version, The Last Hurrah, while you’re at it.
Love to see someone who really cares about the City and its politics, Mooney, Rezendes, Loth write about it. Times like these we miss the Lupos & Scharfenbergs for whom writing about city life was their essence.
(1970 Joint Center for Urban Studies)
a look at the city when housing was a central issue. Also an early look at some of the roles played by some people (developers, organizers and politicians) who are still influential.
We have forgotten The Last Hurrah by Edwin O’Connor ? Not only is this ‘All the Kings Men” for Northern cities and for Boston, but it’s also a more journalistic look at how machine politicians operated and what made them popular contrasting it with the change to television ads and corporate candidates. It’s quite relevant to today’s debates.
And it leaves us with a thought provoking question. Would you rather a man of the people who came up from the people who greases wheels and deals to make sure ‘his’ people get taken care of or a made for tv candidate bought and paid for by corporate interests? Great look at historic conflicts between white ethnics and Brahmins as well as intra-Irish conflicts between old school and lace curtain micks. (Hizzonah and His Eminence are mortal foes). The Spencer Tracy movie version is also fantastic, and whoever they got to play his opponent looks like a carbon copy of Mitt Romney down to the plastic family and robotic interactions with normal folks.
Great book, but it’s still allegorical fiction.
I’ll presume to be a surrogate for the suspended EB3, and say that if you want a great fiction book about Boston, you need to check out George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
One of his more obscure books, but the one I like best is A Year of So With Edgar.
Everything Thomas O’Connor wrote was great, along with Lukas’ book. Also, some great contributions in the comments. (Glad to see Rebound! here.)
I’m thrilled you acknowledged The Death of an American Jewish Community. Great book, especially in context all these years later of the recent subprime mortgage crisis. A lot of similarities. And that book was written in 1992.
Anything Steven Puleo writes is worth reading. Especially Dark Tide, which is about the 1919 Molasses Flood that leveled the North End, killing 21 people. (And even back then, terrorism was a concern.)
I’d also recommend a few autobiographies. James Michael Curley’s I’d Do It Again; Tip O’Neill’s Man of the House; and Bill Bulger’s While the Music Lasts are all worth reading, if only to get their perspective on history, even if it’s through their filter.