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The Rough Guide to Boston 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)
 
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The Rough Guide to Boston 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

by David Fagundes (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)


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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
INTRODUCTION

Boston is as close to the Old World as the New World gets, an American city that proudly trades on its colonial past, having served a crucial role in the country’s development from a few wayward pilgrims right through to the Revolutionary War. It occasionally takes its past a bit too seriously – what might pass for a faded relic anywhere else becomes a plaque-covered tourist sight here – but none of that detracts from the city’s overriding historic charm, nor its present-day energy.

Indeed, there are plenty of tall skyscrapers, thriving business concerns and cultural outposts in Boston that are part-and-parcel of modern urban America, not to mention excellent mergers of past and present, such as the bustling Quincy Market, a paradigm for successful urban renewal. And despite the occasional wearisome touch, no other city in America gives a better feel for the events and personas behind the nation’s birth, all played out in Boston’s wealth of emblematic and evocative colonial-era sights, conveniently linked by the self-guided walking tour (one of a handful in the city) known as the Freedom Trail. As well, the city’s cafés and shops, its attractive public spaces and the diversity of its neighborhoods – student hives, ethnic enclaves and stately districts of preserved townhouses – are similarly alluring, going some way to answering the twin accusations of elitism and provincialism to which Boston is perennially subjected.

Boston is also at the center of the American university system – more than sixty colleges call the area home, including illustrious Harvard and MIT, in the neighbouring city of Cambridge, just across the Charles River. This academic connection has played a key part in the city’s long left-leaning political tradition, which has spawned a line of ethnic mayors, and, most famously, the Kennedy family. Steeped in Puritan roots, local residents often display a slightly anachronistic Yankee pride, but it’s one which has served to protect the city’s identity. Indeed, the districts around Boston Common exude an almost small-town atmosphere, and, until the past decade or so, were relatively unmarred by chain stores and fast-food joints. Meanwhile, groups of Irish and Italian descent have carved out authentic and often equally unchanged communities in areas like the North End, Charlestown and South Boston.

Today, Boston’s relatively small size – both physically and in terms of population (at under 600,000, it ranks well below most other similarly important US cities) – and its provincial feel actually serve to the city’s advantage. Though it has expanded significantly through landfills and annexation since it was first settled in 1630, it has never lost its core, which remains a tangle of streets over old cowpaths clustered around Boston Common (which was itself originally used as cattle pasture). Delightfully, this center can really only be explored properly on foot; for even as Boston has evolved from busy port to blighted city to the rejuvenated and prosperous place it is today, it has remained, fundamentally, a city on a human scale.

About the Author
David Fagundes and Anthony Grant are both Boston residents. David is a former Let's Go managing editor. Anthony is a former AP stringer and journalist on the Moscow Times and many other publications.

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Rough Guides; 3rd edition (April 28, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1843530449
  • ISBN-13: 978-1843530442
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,311,047 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Best travel guide to Boston, September 22, 2003
So what's guy living in Brooklyn have to say about the guidebook for Boston? Well, I have homes in both, and have lived in Boston on and off for decades, so I do have some familiarity with that city, thank you very much. Now, where in Hahvahd Yahd did I pahk my cah?

Seriously, even though I've lived in Boston for a long time it's still a city I don't feel very familiar with. Its complex street system is one thing I'll never master. It's the same feeling I have about Queens, NY, where I also lived for a while but never felt comfortable with. I guess it's because I prefer organized cities. (The small city I grew up in had just one main street, how nice and easy!)

Thankfully The Rough Guide to Boston is well organized and well written. I've read through two dozen guide books on the city and this is by far the best. The Fodor guide is too wordy and confusing, the Dummies guide too shallow and pretentious, the guide put out by the Hahvahd students totally indecipherable and inaccurate. This volume has the right balance between information and entertainment. It's concise yet complete, small yet immensely useful, and it's printed on nice paper so it'll last a good long time. The "24 things not to miss" are the best "best-of-Boston" list I've seen because it goes beyond the obvious popular tourist spots.

If you plan to visit Boston or go to school there, get this high-quality book.

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