Mona Domosh

As an occasionally disgruntled Boston resident, this is perhaps the book I’ve recommended to people the most in real life. Yet I just realized that I never gave my two pesetas worth here in cyberspace. As it’s been a few years, I can’t recall all the particular nuances of this – such as whether “The Creation of Landscape…” as subtitle comes close to anything meaningful - but this is definitely an illuminating read if you ever wondered just what happened to seemingly reverse the destinies of Boston and New York during the nineteenth century. It’s a century where a few Brahmins take the helm and essentially drop anchor whereas New York had a less solidified leadership and thus “The City” burgeoned through diverse means and a certain lack of control from above. Such geographical factors like the potential for shipping obviously benefitted the island, but the powers that be in Beantown aided their increasing stagnation by pushing all fledgling industries outside of town and rested on their cultural laurels. Again, I can’t speak to the particulars of the writing and research but I recall it as offering a great historical account of something that in, say, 1802 might not have been predicted.… (more)