You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
On the Night of November 28, 1942, a fire raged through Boston's number one glitter spot, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in the South End. The worst nightclub fire in American history was over within minutes as flames and fumes swept through the two-story building. Some escaped through luck, fate, or guile, but by midnight, more than five hundred people were dead, dying, or maimed for life. In her gripping narrative, journalist Stephanie Schorow tells the story of the tragic night that made the name "Cocoanut Grove" synonymous with horror and devastation. As Schorow writes, "The inferno reached deep into the city's social structure-its politics, medical care, law enforcement, and religious life-and touched nearly everyone in the Boston area that day, even those who had never set foot in the club." Book jacket.
From the revolutionary camaraderie of the Colonial taverns to the saloons of the turn of the century; from Prohibition—a period rife with class politics, social reform, and opportunism—to a trail of nightclub neon so vast, it was called the “Conga Belt,” Drinking Boston is a tribute to the fascinating role alcohol has played throughout the city's history.
The capture of notorious mobster James "Whitey" Bulger closed an infamous chapter in Boston history. Yet the city's criminal underworld has a long and bloody rap sheet that stretches back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Boston journalists Beverly Ford and Stephanie Schorow reveal the underbelly of Boston through profiles of ruthless gangsters like Charles "King" Solomon, the Angiulo brothers, Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and many more. Ford and Schorow navigate the backrooms and seedy hangouts where deadly hits and lucrative heists were hatched to guide readers to the real story of Boston's gangster past.
On January 17, 1950, seven robbers in Halloween masks walked into a counting room of the Brink's armored car garage on Prince Street in Boston and walked out with $2.5 million in cash, checks, and securities. It was the largest robbery in U.S. history to date. Yet not a shot was fired, not a drop of blood shed. The robbers simply said, "This is a stick-up," before gagging and tying up the guards. Within minutes they escaped into the night with bags stuffed with money, leaving almost no clues behind. For six years authorities worked to crack the case. Just before the statute of limitations ran out, one of the robbers, who believed he was cheated out of his share, ratted out his comrades. The ...
The story of a Harvard student’s murder in 1970s Boston amid racial strife and rampant corruption, told with “careful reporting and historical context” (Providence Journal). Shortlisted for the 2021 Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction and the 2022 Anthony Award for Best Critical or Nonfiction Work At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston’s Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city’s adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city’s North End, was murdered in a stab...
Fires and firefighting in Boston from the seventeenth century to the present. Includes the Great Fire of 1872, the Cocoanut Grove fire, the Vendome fire, and others.
A superb collection of essays on Salem s rich history and cultural life over the past four centuries now with a new preface."
The enduring influence of naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt on American art, culture, and politics Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was one of the most influential scientists and thinkers of his age. A Prussian-born geographer, naturalist, explorer, and illustrator, he was a prolific writer whose books graced the shelves of American artists, scientists, philosophers, and politicians. Humboldt visited the United States for six weeks in 1804, engaging in a lively exchange of ideas with such figures as Thomas Jefferson and the painter Charles Willson Peale. It was perhaps the most consequential visit by a European traveler in the young nation's history, one that helped to shape...
This edited collection understands exploration as a collective effort and experience involving a variety of people in diverse kinds of relationships. It engages with the recent resurgence of interest in the history of exploration by focusing on the various indigenous intermediaries – Jacky Jacky, Bungaree, Moowattin, Tupaia, Mai, Cheealthluc and lesser-known individuals – who were the guides, translators, and hosts that assisted and facilitated European travellers in exploring different parts of the world. These intermediaries are rarely the authors of exploration narratives, or the main focus within exploration archives. Nonetheless the archives of exploration contain imprints of their presence, experience and contributions. The chapters present a range of ways of reading archives to bring them to the fore. The contributors ask new questions of existing materials, suggest new interpretive approaches, and present innovative ways to enhance sources so as to generate new stories.
The 1872 Great Boston Fire was barely contained after two days of spreading rapidly across the city, becoming one of the most expensive fire disasters in America. Stephanie Schorow, a seasoned Boston veteran, masterfully recounts the stories and heroics surrounding the fire, those which have all been slowly forgotten by the public. Collaborating with the Boston Fire Historical Society and featuring artwork from the time period, a dramatic narrative retold for a modern audience.