Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism [Paperback]

Jonathan Rieder (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674093615 | ISBN-13: 978-0674093614 | Publication Date: March 15, 1987

What accounts for the precarious state of liberalism in the mid 1980s? Why was the Republican Party able to steal away so many ethnic Democrats of modest means in recent presidential elections? Jonathan Rieder explores these questions in his powerful study of the Jews and Italians of Canarsie, a middle-income community that was once the scene of a wild insurgency against racial busing. Proud bootstrappers, the children of immigrants, Canarsians may speak with piquant New York accents, but their story has a more universal appeal. Canarsie is Middle America, Brooklyn-style.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A sparkling shower of insights...Intellectually exciting. (American Journal of Sociology 20090328)

This is the best ethnography of a white community to appear in a decade, and should be read by every scholar in urban sociology, political sociology, and social movement…Rieder has crafted a finely detailed portrait. (Contemporary Sociology )

The rise of Ronald Reagan and the politics of the 1980s surprised many of the country's best-known analysts…Jonathan Rieder was in the right places at the right time--the streets and kitchens of Canarsie, Brooklyn--to understand what was actually happening (and going to happen next) in American politics.
--Richard Reeves

A remarkable compelling portrait of the new ways of middle America, drawn with compassion, grace, and wisdom.
--Kai Erikson, President, American Sociological Association

No scholarly book of recent memory better conveys the specific sense of outraged betrayal that swept through the urban precincts of the Democratic Party in the mid 1970s than does Jonathan Rieder's brilliant study Canarsie. (Wilson Quarterly )

Yale anthropologist Jonathan Rieder spent two years living not in New Guinea or up the Amazon but in a place that his academic colleagues probably found even more exotic: the lower-middle-class neighborhood adjacent to New York's Kennedy Airport. There Rieder witnessed close-up the destruction of Roosevelt's coalition by voter revulsion against crime, welfare and casual disorder.
--David Frum (Wall Street Journal )

Review

The rise of Ronald Reagan and the politics of the 1980s surprised many of the country's best-known analysts…Jonathan Rieder was in the right places at the right time--the streets and kitchens of Canarsie, Brooklyn--to understand what was actually happening (and going to happen next) in American politics. (Richard Reeves ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 15, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674093615
• ISBN-13: 978-0674093614
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An accurate presentation, March 10, 2006

By 

A reader (Branchburg, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism (Paperback)

I lived in Canarsie from 1959 through 1970. I think that the author presented an accurate picture of the social fabric of Canarsie, especially the view that it was a "closed place" in the eyes of the inhabitants; that is, it was a safe haven for its inhabitants and could remain so if outsiders were kept out. In view of skyrocketing crime rates in the 1960s outside of Canarsie, this was a rational opinion in what was seen as an oasis in an otherwise crumbling city. Rieder captures the sense of rage and helplessness felt by Canarsians about their lack of control of their lives by threats of violence by minority populations and actions of Manhattan elites who tried to redress centuries of legitimate grievances of blacks by making the Canarsians (and not themselves) give up control of their schools (and lives) and pay taxes for doing it. This is not to condone violence against black children and the firebombing of black-bought homes, but Canarsians had every right to oppose forced busing of their children from successful Canarsie schools to unsuccessful schools outside their district, and the busing of outside children into the district in order to satisfy the desires of outsiders without any evidence that such bussing would benefit Canarsie children (let alone the outside children as well).

For anyone who thinks that the people of Canarsie were nothing but small-minded, mean-spirited bigots, I'd like to remind him that this was a population of hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying members of society who were the working backbone of New York City. They may have not been as educated nor "cosmopolitan" as many Manhattanites, but they were wise enough to see through the nonsense of expanded welfare handouts, non-enforcement of law, excessive government spending, and "ethnic politics" of the Lindsay years that took a generation to repair.

This is definitely a book worth reading for anyone who is interested in ethnic politics or the history of New York City in the 1960s and 1970s.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Epilogue, September 27, 2005

By 

L. Fischman (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism (Paperback)

For those of you who wanted the racial Epilogue about the actual subject of this book, Canarsie, here it is. In the 80s the first black families started to move into single family homes in the "prime" white areas of the neighborhood. The realtor who brokered one of these moves had their offices fire-bombed. Alas, the trend already was underway and not to be stopped. A significant number of Chinese families were the first to make inroads, but I believe they since left since a critical mass of these never was established. Black families, largely middle class drawn from the ranks of city workers and others, began to move into the neighborhood in great numbers. The racial changeover occurred with remarkable speed. Within about 5 years during the mid 90s, it was complete. It seems as if there had been a huge exodus of the former residents, probably to other middle class areas in Long Island, Staten Island, Queens and elsewhere (which is where my own siblings went).

The economic outcome is mixed, at least to the observer. Rockaway Parkway and the neighborhood's shopping areas (Avenue L, and those on Rockaway Parkway itself) have declined over the years. However, the housing stock seems to be well-maintained. The decline of the shopping areas may have been a result of outside influences such as large retailers.

The rise of conservatism among the areas inhabitants, to my mind, is drawn more along economic lines. The upwardly mobile Jews in particular may have remained somewhat liberal. The working class probably did go more right.

Pay the actual neighborhood a visit one day! Canarsie Pier has been wonderfully renovated and it a nice place to walk on a summer day, to see what the fishermen have in their buckets.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Working class ethnics resent blacks and social liberals, April 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism (Paperback)

This is about how working-class ethnics in New York, who are supposedly solid Democratic constituents, came to resent Liberalism. Basically, they saw the blacks and other racial minorities around them behaving in ways they considered uncivilized and saw a rich trendy white liberal elite making justifications for their behavior. People like this eventually elected Nixon and Reagan.