Tweed's New York

Tweed's New York PDF

Author: Leo Hershkowitz

Publisher: Anchor Books

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Professor Leo Hershkowitz (History Department, Queens College - CUNY) does away with all of the rumor, mirrors and smoke about Boss Tweed with his fantastic research and easy-to-read text. Any student of New York City history must have this book in their collection.

Boss Tweed's New York

Boss Tweed's New York PDF

Author: Seymour J. Mandelbaum

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher

Published: 1965

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780929587202

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Amidst the turbulent political and social conditions of a metropolis in the making, Boss Tweed was, according to Mr. Mandelbaum, the right man at the right time -- "a master communicator" who "united the elements in a divided society." This is a cogent case study in the democratization of American society. With a new preface by the author.

Doomed by Cartoon

Doomed by Cartoon PDF

Author: John Adler

Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

Published: 2008-08-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1600374433

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume is a collection of political cartoons by Thomas Nast that brought Boss Tweed to justice. The legendary Boss Tweed effectively controlled New York City from after the Civil War until his downfall in November 1871. A huge man, he and his Ring of Thieves appeared to be invincible as they stole an estimated $2 billion in today's dollars. In addition to the New York City and state governments, the Tweed Ring controlled the press except for Harper's Weekly. Short and slight Thomas Nast was the most dominant American political cartoonist of all time; using his pen as his sling in Harper's Weekly, he attacked Tweed almost single-handily, before The New-York Times joined the battle in 1870. The author focuses on the circumstances and events as Thomas Nast visualized them in his 160-plus cartoons, almost like a serialized but intermittent comic book covering 1866 through 1878.

The Shame of the Cities

The Shame of the Cities PDF

Author: Lincoln Steffens

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2012-03-08

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0486147665

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Taking a hard look at the unprincipled lives of political bosses, police corruption, graft payments, and other political abuses of the time, the book set the style for future investigative reporting.

More Die of Heartbreak

More Die of Heartbreak PDF

Author: Saul Bellow

Publisher: Odyssey Editions

Published: 2016-04-19

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1623730368

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In More Die of Heartbreak, our erratic narrator explains to his audience that he must abandon Paris for the Midwest. Of course, Kenneth merely wants to be closer to his beloved uncle, the world-famous botanist Benn Crader, to receive the older man’s worldly wisdom. The mercurial Benn, however, struggles to put down roots himself, constantly departing for the forests of India, the mountains of China, the jungles of Brazil, or even the Antarctic. Why does he travel so much? Submerging himself in botanical studies seem insufficient, and he hunts relentlessly for more carnal satisfaction. More Die of Heartbreak has all the humor of a French farce, and all the brooding darkness of a Hitchcock film. From this tragicomedy Bellow unravels a brilliant and sinister examination of contemporary sexuality, asking why even the most noble pursuits often end in mundane disillusionment.

America, Compromised

America, Compromised PDF

Author: Lawrence Lessig

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-10-22

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 022631667X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

An analysis of “the Trump era, but not about Trump. . . . but on how incentives across a range of institutions have created corruption” (New York Times Book Review). “There is not a single American awake to the world who is comfortable with the way things are.” So begins Lawrence Lessig's sweeping indictment of modern-day American institutions and the corruption that besets them—from the selling of Congress to special interests to the corporate capture of the academy. And it’s our fault. What Lessig brilliantly shows is that we can’t blame the problems of contemporary American life on bad people, as our discourse all too often tends to do. Rather, he explains, “We have allowed core institutions of America’s economic, social, and political life to become corrupted. Not by evil souls, but by good souls. Not through crime, but through compromise.” Through case studies of Congress, finance, the academy, the media, and the law, Lessig shows how institutions are drawn away from higher purposes and toward money, power, quick rewards—the first steps to corruption. Lessig knows that a charge so broad should not be levied lightly, and that our instinct will be to resist it. So he brings copious detail gleaned from years of research, building a case that is all but incontrovertible: America is on the wrong path. If we don’t acknowledge our own part in that, and act now to change it, we will hand our children a less perfect union than we were given. It will be a long struggle. This book represents the first steps. “A devastating argument that America is racing for the cliff's edge of structural, possibly irreversible tyranny.” —Cory Doctorow

"Boss" Tweed

Author: Denis Tilden Lynch

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 1927

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 1412816009

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

No political scandal in American history has had a greater impact on America's political consciousness than the rise and fall of the "Tweed Ring" in New York City between 1866 and 1871. In an age ripe with scandal both public and private, the spectacular corruption charged to "Boss" Tweed and his associates-estimates of their extortion range from $20 million to $200 million-became an enduring symbol of the dark side of democratic politics. The Tweed Ring contributed much more than cartoonist impressions; it helped to shape a powerful theory of political reform. It was in truth one of the formative events of progressivism, that multifaceted doctrine that has evolved into the modern American creed. In this sense, the Tweed Ring was to produce not only deep misgivings about the existing regime, but an insight into how it should be reformed. Denis Tilden Lynch's biography of "Boss" Tweed was first published in 1927, in a time filled, like Tweed's, with sudden prosperity, daunting problems, and spectacular scandals. It is a straight-forward, workmanlike study, untroubled by the conceits of modern historical scholarship, and close enough to its subject's generation to have some of the immediacy of journalism. Of all the books published about the Tweed affair, Lynch's study is the only one that is a genuine biography, in which the man himself is the focus. For this reason it conveys something of the texture of daily life in New York in the nineteenth century, while bringing Tweed out from behind the shadows of Thomas Nast's leering cartoons, and presenting him, as much as is possible, as a man and not an icon. An interesting example of Americana, this volume will be of interest to historians of the period as well as those interested in American urban and political life.