I will be travelling to New York at the end of the month. Could anyone recommend me a good history guide on New York city?
Thanks

Are there any specific aspects, time periods, or areas of NYC history you're interested in? It's a big place with a lot of history . . .

My suggestion is read Pete Hamill's Downtown: My Manhattan to get a quick sense of New York and it's intricate and multi-faceted history. It's not a history guide but it's written by a guy who knows NY and loves it with a passion.

I've always found the Fodor's guides to be useful and give a good basic background of the history of a place.

I will be staying about 5 days (incl. weekend) between manhattan and 100th street. I'm especially interested in the settling of NY in the 16 and 17th century.

The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto is a wonderful introduction to a little-known part of early Manhattan history, the Dutch period of early settlement.

Unearthing Gotham by Anne-Marie Cantwell and Touring Gotham's Archaeological Past by Diane diZerega Wall are guides to lost parts of the city.

New York Burning is a history of slavery in New York in the 19th century.

Last year, The New Yorker published a wonderful article about the Manahatta project, a project to discover and recreate the pre-European ecosystem of New York. Unfortunately, it's not available online, but you can view a slideshow of early images here.

There's also The Battle for New York, about New York in the Revolution.