New York: An Illustrated History of the People [Hardcover]

Allon Schoener (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 1998

The definitive pictorial history of the diverse peoples of the world who have made New York their home.

According to the 1990 census, New York, for the first time in a century, had more foreign-born inhabitants than native-born residents. A city of continual immigration, New York's people have been documented by major artists and photographers from the earliest European settlers to the present. In this majestic illustrated history, with over 500 prints, paintings, and photographs, many never before published, we see the arrival of the first wave of Dutch and Anglo-Saxon settlers in the seventeenth century. We progress through Irish and German immigrations in the mid-nineteenth century, the immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of vast numbers of Italians and Eastern European Jews as well as Greeks and Slavs, followed by African Americans moving from the South after World War I. Finally, as the twentieth century comes to a close, Caribbeans, Latinos, Africans, and Asians have become the dominant new New Yorkers. As he did with Harlem on My Mind, The Lower East Side, American Jewish Album, and The Italian Americans, Allon Schoener has brought together wonderful images as well as documentary accounts from diaries, letters, news articles, and other sources, giving us the rich history and texture of this great city. Over 500 prints, paintings, and photographs

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like the city it celebrates, this book is huge, filled with a myriad of images, and it boasts a diversity that is nearly overwhelming. Each of its hundreds of two-page spreads focuses on a particular theme, using illustrations and captions to tell the story of New York and New Yorkers. Beginning with Verrazano's first European contact with the area in 1524, the book takes the reader on a long and scenic journey up to the present day. The book provides a wonderful opportunity to see what New York and New Yorkers looked like, and the text, while seeming at first glance to be merely captions for the thousands of illustration, does provide some serious (and very entertaining) history. --Robert McNamara

From Library Journal

This heavily illustrated book about the diversity of New York City's inhabitants focuses on the various waves of immigrants. Chapters group the subjects chronologically, with a brief overview of each period. New York is more than a mix of groups that originally came here from other countries, however. There are also Suffragettes and street vendors, bohemians and baseball players, taxi drivers and philanthropists and dozens of other groups; and most of these topics get a page in this study in contrasts. The distinct quality of various neighborhoods and boroughs at fixed points in time comes through in the pictures, although the ethnicity and demographics of most NYC neighborhoods have changed rapidly over the last few decades. Schoener's (Harlem on My Mind, LJ 8/95) text provides a very brief introduction to each group; the archival illustrations are the main reason to purchase. Although the book does not cover new ground and probably reinforces more than challenges existing ideas about the people of New York, it is an accessible presentation of a popular subject.?Kathleen Collins, Bank of America Archives, San Francisco
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (May 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393045811
• ISBN-13: 978-0393045819
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 10.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,643,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A coffee table book par excellence, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: New York: An Illustrated History of the People (Hardcover)

New York : An Illustrated History is a lively, informative book that tells the city's history from a unique perspective. Allon Schoener, a social historian, traces the waves of immigration to New York over the last four centuries and tells their story using photographs, letters, newspapers, and paintings. The reader feels a sense of immediacy as well as understanding as he learns about each ethnic group and their impact on the city. In the end it is the story of all New Yorkers and how they have made and continue to make the city great. The story is well-researched and clearly told with great insight. It is obviously the work of someone who loves New York. Mr.Schoener's text is matched by his brilliant choice of photographs. New York: An Illustrated History is clearly a coffee table book par excellence which will be read over and over again.