Customer Reviews

Camden County, New Jersey: The Making of a Metropolitan Community, 1626-2000

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Camden County New Jersey; across the Deleware from Philadelphia, contains nearly as much history as its' neighbor to the West, yet like much of New Jersey's history little is known. Rutgers University's Jeffery Dorwort has been on a mission to change this, with books and papers on Cape May County, the New York Ship Yard in Camden, and several other topics of New Jersey history. His book on Camden County should appeal both to scholars and laymen with an interest in how the Multi-cultural American communities of the East Coast developed. One needn't ever stepped foot in New Jersey to appriciate the role this community, with Walt Whitman's final home of Camden at the seat, played in forming modern (ne post-modern) America. From slave traders to suburbanization, this book covers the history of America via a microcosm of the country.

This is an effective history, one that provides a lot of details about the rise and fall/further rise of an area of New Jersey near and dear to my heart. The narrative is chock full of family names and dates and company names; it could use a little more in the way of background about these people. All in all, it's a useful book, particularly in the way that it explains the decline of the city of Camden.