An Unofficial 'The Rest Is History' Reading List

360. Fear City: New York in the 1970s

August 16, 2023

Description

“A cloud of black, acrid smoke hung over the area. It was a scene from a warzone, a battlefield - it was a scene from the end of the world…” New York in the 1970s was a city decimated by economic...
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Books Referenced

The Power Broker

Author: Robert Caro

Context:

Mentioned as a 'fantastic book' about Robert Moses and how he reshaped New York with expressways, cutting through working-class neighbourhoods

Bonfire of the Vanities

Author: Tom Wolfe

Context:

Referenced as 'the Tom Wolfe novel' in discussion of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, where a yuppie accidentally goes off the wrong exit

Anabasis

Author: Xenophon

Context:

Referenced indirectly as 'The March of the 10,000' - the classical Greek work about mercenaries stranded in Iraq who must fight their way back to Greece, mentioned as the basis for the film The Warriors