The City's End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York's Destruction [Paperback]

Prof. Max Page (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2010

From nineteenth-century paintings of fires raging through New York City to scenes of Manhattan engulfed by a gigantic wave in the 1998 movie Deep Impact, images of the city’s end have been prolific and diverse. Why have Americans repeatedly imagined New York’s destruction? What do the fantasies of annihilation played out in virtually every form of literature and art mean? This book is the first to investigate two centuries of imagined cataclysms visited upon New York, and to provide a critical historical perspective to our understanding of the events of September 11, 2001.

Max Page examines the destruction fantasies created by American writers and imagemakers at various stages of New York’s development. Seen in every medium from newspapers and films to novels, paintings, and computer software, such images, though disturbing, have been continuously popular. Page demonstrates with vivid examples and illustrations how each era’s destruction genre has reflected the city’s economic, political, racial, or physical tensions, and he also shows how the images have become forces in their own right, shaping Americans’ perceptions of New York and of cities in general.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

This richly detailed book celebrates the enduring cultural significance of New York with an account of our unending desire to envision its demise. Since the nineteenth century, when the city established itself as a symbol not only of power and wealth but of racial diversity and class stratification, New York—beset by immigrants, crime, and crises real and imagined—has been the locus of America’s apocalyptic anxieties. Page, a professor of architecture and history, charts the evolution of popular fears in films, drawings, literature, video games, and amusement-park rides. His argument that “each era has found it useful to destroy New York in its own particular way” draws on theorists like Spengler and Sontag, but they are less illuminating than the gleeful illustrations, which attest to the notion that “no place looks better destroyed than New York.”
Copyright ©2008 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"An informative and provocative read."—Tama Starr, Wall Street Journal

(Tama Starr Wall Street Journal 20081003)

"Erudite but lavishly illustrated."—Sam Roberts, New York Times

(Sam Roberts New York Times 20081019)

"The City's End explores the imaginative and often profitable ways that filmmakers, writers, and artists have blown up, incinerated, drowned or depopulated New York City. . . . Page thoughtfully analyzes why the city's ruination has been such an enduringly popular theme."—Ann Levin, Newsday

(Ann Levin Newsday 20081212)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (July 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300164467
• ISBN-13: 978-0300164466
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #729,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a Professor of Architecture and History at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. I am the author of The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900-1940 (University of Chicago Press, 1999), which won the Spiro Kostof Award of the Society of Architectural Historians, for the best book on architecture and urbanism. I write for a variety of publications about New York City, urban development, and the politics of the past. I am also the co-editor (with Steven Conn) of Building the Nation: Americans Write About Their Architecture, Their Cities, and Their Environment (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), as well as the co-editor (with Randall Mason) of Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States (Routledge, 2003). For the hundredth anniversary of Times Square in 2004, I curated an exhibition on the history of the Square at the AXA Gallery in New York City. My latest book, The City's End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York's Destruction was published by Yale University Press in 2008. You can learn more about The City's End at www.thecitysend.com. I am a recipient of fellowships from the Howard Foundation, Fulbright Commission, and Guggenheim Foundation. My next book project is entitled Priceless: Rethinking Historic Preservation in the 21st Century.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing examination of a rich topic August 22, 2010

By Mark Klobas VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Americans have long had a complex relationship with their nation's largest city. Despite (or perhaps because of) New York City's central role in the financial, social, and cultural life of the nation, many have fantasized and depicted its destruction in print, on canvas, and on the silver screen. In this book Max Page examines nearly two centuries of works depicting New York destruction in an effort to draw out their social and cultural meaning. From it he divines commonalities that say much about our broader anxieties regarding modern society, anxieties that we project onto the city in disaster tale after disaster tale.

Page's examination is chronological, with all the strengths and weaknesses that come with this approach. In the nineteenth century, destruction typically took the form of some sort of natural disaster, a modern-day biblical cleansing that would wipe away the sins Americans already associated with Gotham. By the early twentieth century, some authors offered social criticisms as well as moral ones, as did W. E. B. Du Bois when he penned a short story that used the survival of a black man and a white woman to make a broader statement about racism. The destruction of the city was also sometimes accomplished at the hands of an foreign attacker, a useful way of making political points about preparedness and vulnerability. By the 1960s, the sense of urban crisis came to predominate in many depictions, suggesting that its destruction would come from within rather than without. Though the attacks of September 11 brought a temporary moratorium on such explorations, it was not long before the city was being flooded, frozen, and smashed once again, demonstrating that as long as New York remained America's premier metropolis it would be continued to be targeted by writers, artists, and film makers.

Broad ranging and generously supplemented with illustrations, Page's book is an interesting examination of the meaning behind fictional destruction of New York. The September 11 attacks loom large within his analysis as an intersection between life and the theme of the works in his study, suggesting just how much of our fixation on this day was rooted in the longstanding fixation he examines. Yet his focus is somewhat idiosyncratic, as he excludes many relevant works (such as Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka's novel Warday) while important historical events such as the burning of the city during the American Revolution -- seemingly relevant given the author's focus -- barely rate a mention. As a result the book ultimately proves to be something of a disappointment; while readers interested in New York City or disaster fiction with find points of interest in it, most will finish it wanting more than what Page offers, which is a shame given the promise of his topic.

4.0 out of 5 stars An Informative Survey August 16, 2012

By Kelly Cooper VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Max Page has created an elegantly designed, well-proportioned survey of fictional portrayals of New York's destruction. I was initially drawn to this book because I was curious about the persistent presence of this kind of destruction in my own fantasy life: What was behind my apparent need to imaginatively destroy New York? I moved to New York a little while ago, and was mildly unnerved by how frequently I soothed myself by picturing it destroyed in true disaster film fashion. In the context of my own sublimated psychological issues, I was thankful to have a broader understanding of this impulse. This is a useful survey of the destruction of New York in relation to greater sociological fears, personal psychological postures, and (especially) cinematic and literary history. It's a decent book - with many illustrations - that, while probably not of great interest to a large demographic, is nonetheless enlightening for the general reader. Anyone who is interested in disaster movies, for example, will find something here that is worthwhile.