Customer Reviews

A Short and Remarkable History of New York City

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It's too bad that this book has become a "hard-to-find" title that's going out of print. "A Short and Remarkable History of New York City" by Jane Mushabac and Angela Wigan is a tight, brisk, roller coaster ride through close to four centuries of NYC history, that is well worth the price. Thirty-something dollars may seem like a lot for a 160-page book that is mostly a timeline, but when you consider that this book is loaded with over 1,500 facts, historic moments and figures and some brilliant illustrations provided by the Museum of the City of New York--many of them that you won't find in the usual NYC history books--the price of roughly 25 cents a page is a steal.

It is curious that Amazon is offering Burrows and Wallace's "Gotham" as the Better-Together item with this book. Not that "Gotham" isn't a good book--it is one of THE BEST! It's just that it seems quite a leap from a mostly illustrated 160-page timeline to a deeply serious, scholarly, 1,000 page history. For the newcomer to NYC history, "A Short and Remarkable History of New York City" is a great starting point. But from here I would recommend Eric Homberger's "Historical Atlas of New York City". Maybe from there you can go to "Gotham"

In any event, pick up this short, remarkable book before it goes out of print.

Rocco Dormarunno, author of The Five Points.

A Short & Remarkable History Of New York City is a concise history provides a lively survey of New York City and its people rather than reviewing its historical sites: it provides insights on how New Yorkers behaved and misbehaved, what they wore, how they became rich or poor, and how they led their lives. A lively, fun coverage New Yorkers in particular will relish.

Concisely puts early New York history into perspective while accounting for the global changes at the time Manhattan was first inhabited by the Dutch. This book is a great primer for those who are new to researching the evolution of New York City.

In her unique and engaging style, Jane Mushabac shows her readers the day-to-day lives of early New Yorkers and their city.
A "must read' for anyone interested in the history of the greatest city in the world and the energetic spirit of its early citizens.

I bought several books on New York City from Amazon to prepare for a trip to NYC. This was by far the worse--and I will return it. It contains page-after-page of dates with paragraph descriptors. Very little depth. Images were very grainy on low-quality paper. Very few maps to provide context.

This paled in contrast to Eric Homberger's The Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of 400 Years of New York City's History, which provided excellent depth, great maps and crisp images on bright white glossy paper.