“Represents the most comprehensive examination to date of the city’s history prior to 1900. Indeed, few historians today attempt synthetic and comprehensive interpretations of this magnitude. The authors weave together the unique details of New York City’s history with a generation’s worth of recent and original scholarship, insightfully reconceptualizing the city’s past.... Gotham is filled with engaging vignettes and vivid narratives. The stories of Abraham Lincoln’s visits to New York in 1860 and 1861, [and] the description of the draft riots of 1863 (still the deadliest incident of urban disorder in American history)... are among the best short historical accounts readers will find anywhere...”