A stupendous study ... It spans everything from bebop to comic books, from the New Deal to the America First movement ... For all Wallace’s assiduity, the pace never lags as he briskly marches across an enormous amount of territory ... [A] masterwork.
Writ[ten] with both panoramic sweep and an acute eye for telling detail ... A vibrant narrative that admirably balances the political, the cultural and the commercial ... Each one is a small masterpiece of concision that combines erudition, insight and dry humor ... Colorful characters abound ... Mr. Wallace takes us on a fascinating excursion into both the now lost yet somehow familiar human superstructure, and the sometimes sordid underbelly, of the city we know today.
Remarkable ... Wallace scrupulously shows how racism, prejudice, and discrimination were kept alive ... The struggle of the peoples of the world for sovereignty and against colonialism is a leitmotif in Wallace’s book, which fans out to the Middle East, China, India, and Puerto Rico when he sensitively discusses the various ethnic populations in the city ... Wallace poignantly concludes with the launch of the United Nations.
