This is not a Coolgrove book but is being promoted here because it is critically informative about NYC politics during the Civil War years and richly illuminated with a wide variety of who’s who and what influencers, progressives and reactionaries, that were operating here. What were they thinking, what were they doing during that fraught period? Politicians, artists, men, women— what was it like? What have we inherited from that time?
City of Sedition satisfies greatly on that front, especially for us now. Having lived here continuously since 1969, before I read this book, I did not really understand the context of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of NY, ‘the riots’, old movies about the tribal/political turf wars between Wasps, Irish, Italian and other immigrants and the shrinking plight of free Black villages in the mist of the build up to the declaration of war. Many in the business communities and Wall Street violently supported the institution of Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade which were both now growing exponentially after the invention of cotton ginneries which were now humming away on steam and water power in Hudson, NY, with tons of cotton now being shipped upriver from the cotton belt down south as fast as possible.
ATTENTION!
Now this book goes LIVE for four days, every Wednesday starting September 6th, (90 minutes each day) in an exclusive Zoom presentation of
The City of Sedition by it’s author JOHN STRAUSBAUGH in person.
Here in his own words:
My “City of Sedition” Zoom course for the Gotham Center, about New York City during the Civil War. My take on a fraught period in history that resonates in surprising ways with what’s happening today. Four Wednesday evenings starting September 6. All recorded, so if you miss any you can watch at your convenience. It’s based on my book of the same name, described by a reviewer as “A RICH FEAST OF OUTRAGEOUS INCIDENTS, LARGER-THAN-LIFE CHARACTERS, AND OFTEN ASTONISHING REVELATIONS.”
What are you waiting for? Sign up and be counted. Here’s more information and the registration button.
