Rosalyn Baxandall (1939–2015)

I think there are better books about the history of suburbia, but the second half of Picture Windows was a great study of the original Levittown on Long Island. I especially appreciated the discussion of recent changes in the racial and ethnic demographics of Long Island, as well as the economic difficulties resulting from de-industrialization and illegal work practices. The authors present a more positive, though still critical, view of suburbia that is missing in most scholarship.

The subject matter (the evolution of suburbia, from architecture to economics to neighborhood/community culture, on Long Island NY) is interesting, and the authors' writing style is refreshingly readable, especially for an academic work. But somebody did a positively *horrible* job proofreading and cleaning this up for publication. The sheer number of typos and even improperly formated bits (such as the second and third block quotes and footnoted items in the first chapter) honestly shocked show more me. I actually flipped back to the publication page, about 20 pages in, to doublecheck whether my copy might be an uncorrected ARC. The sloppiness really undercut my enjoyment of the reading and even my trust of the work, which was a shame. show less

This collection of primary sources from the 1970's Women's Liberation movement is made up of work that was first available through the underground press as mimeographed flyers, pamphlets or articles. The editors were participants in the movement: Baxandall was a member of New York Radical Women and Gordon was involved with the socialist organization Bread and Roses out of Boston. Their introductory essay offers a useful theoretical outline for looking at this period of women's history that show more addresses relevant issues of culture and the underground press explicitly. Works are cited in their original form as much as possible but there is no extensive bibliography or detailed information on the original publications themselves. It is noted that the editors did extensive research in private collections to get their material, so this is unfortunate. show less