Chicagoland: City and Suburbs in the Railroad Age (Historical Studies of Urban America) (Paperback)

by Ann Durkin Keating (Author)
Key Phrases: railroad commuter suburbs, rail suburbs, commuter railroad lines, Chicago Historical Society, Leslie Schwartz, Gross Point (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"In our ideal reference world there would be an encyclopedia like this one for every great American city. This is a superb ready-reference work on Chicago, a good starting point for students doing research, and a wonderful book to browse through." - Booklist"

Review
"The exciting freshness of her ideas helps carry the reader along, and so does one of Keating''s side enthusiasms: She is a lover of preserved historic buildings. There are lots of photos of old structures that help make her points, such as restored farmhouses, abandoned (or converted) factories, and even the remnants of summer camp buildings put up by churches when the suburbs were still isolated amid the woods. Keating even provides several detailed driving tours readers can take around the Chicago area to view this old architecture."-Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times (Henry Kisor Chicago Sun-Times ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (November 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226428826
• ISBN-13: 978-0226428826
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #500,328 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring -- and not about railroads, December 31, 2006

By	Phil Kosin (Chicago, Ill.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My wife gave me this book last winter. I found it to be a boring, laborious read that included very, very little if anything about the railroads themselves -- the photo of the train on the cover and the book title itself are grossly misleading to the casual observer. The use of the words "Railroad Age" in the title describe only the time period of sprawl highlighted by the book, and not the subject matter. That's what fooled my honey into buying it.

The book is hardly entertaining -- it is a dry and cumbersome social study and written in a tough-to-decipher journalese that reads like a thesis or term paper and Viola! even contains text that is littered with superscript numerals tagged to annoying footnotes. For a railfan it is a complete waste of money. I was very mad that during its too-frequent begging sessions the local PBS station was billing it as "the perfect gift for a railfan." Hardly. Maybe the author, a college history professor, intended this as a textbook for a college-level class studying urban history, and somehow it went on to be widely distributed. However, it does come in handy. I keep it on the nightstand and opening it works better than Ambien.