kellyelizabeth27's review
3.0
I've lived for eight years in New York and experienced one small blackout, one large, one terrorist attack, one water main break, several huge anti-war rallies and one Republican National Convention rally, fears about anthrax and MRSA, threat levels of all colors, and we have the reputation of bearing up and moving on.
But New York today is nothing compared to what it was, to the days when riots were a more-or-less regular event, be they over scarcity of flour, the Stamp Act, racial or religious hatreds, the draft - what can top four days of draft riots experienced in 1863, when thousands of angry men and women took to the streets, burned and looted, attacked policemen, soldiers, and innocent passersby, and, in the end, forgot their cause?
And for sheer absurdity, the Astor Place riots took place because of a feud between a popular British actor and a popular American one; when the Brit came to New York to play Macbeth, his rival put up the same show across the street!
The book drags a bit in it's blow-by-blow accounts of mobs and the actions taken to subdue them - I will confess to having fallen asleep over this one on the subway more than once - and the author was a Know-Nothing, a true wacko of his day. But by and large he manages to hide his biases except towards the proper maintenance of order, and who can blame him after reading these accounts of utter disorder?
But New York today is nothing compared to what it was, to the days when riots were a more-or-less regular event, be they over scarcity of flour, the Stamp Act, racial or religious hatreds, the draft - what can top four days of draft riots experienced in 1863, when thousands of angry men and women took to the streets, burned and looted, attacked policemen, soldiers, and innocent passersby, and, in the end, forgot their cause?
And for sheer absurdity, the Astor Place riots took place because of a feud between a popular British actor and a popular American one; when the Brit came to New York to play Macbeth, his rival put up the same show across the street!
The book drags a bit in it's blow-by-blow accounts of mobs and the actions taken to subdue them - I will confess to having fallen asleep over this one on the subway more than once - and the author was a Know-Nothing, a true wacko of his day. But by and large he manages to hide his biases except towards the proper maintenance of order, and who can blame him after reading these accounts of utter disorder?
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