Synopses & Reviews
Social classes, like fortunes, are made and remade, and invariably the two are linked. Tracing the shifting fortunes and changing character of New York City's economic elite over half a century, this book brings to light a neglected - and critical - chapter in the social history of the United States: the rise of an American bourgeoisie. How a small and diverse group of New Yorkers came to wield unprecedented economic, social, and political power is the story that Sven Beckert pursues from 1850 to the turn of the nineteenth century. Blending social, economic, and political history, his book reveals the central role of the Civil War in realigning New York Cityas economic elite, as merchants began to shed their old allegiances to slavery and the Atlantic economy, and to cede a greater share of economic power to industrialists. We then see how in the wake of Reconstruction the New York bourgeoisie reoriented its ideology, abandoning the free labor views of the antebellum years for laissez-faire liberalism. Finally, in the 1880s and 1890s, we observe the emergence of a fully self-conscious and inordinately powerful New York upper class. Drawing on a remarkable range of sources from tax lists to personal papers, credit ratings to congressional testimony The Monied Metropolis provides a richly textured historical portrait of society redefining itself. Its reach extends well beyond New York, into the most important issues of social and political change in nineteenth-century America. Sven Beckert is Dunwalke Associate Professor of History at Harvard University. This is his first book.
Review
"...a deftly told account of the Manhattan bourgeoisie's impressively shrewd negotiation of the ever-shifting terrain of the American political and economic landscape. As such, it yields thought-provoking insights into the ways in which power has been--and continues to be--acquired and exercised in the U.S." Publishers Weekly"A fascinating history of New York during the late nineteenth-century, a time when big money was changing the face of the city....dazzingly successful." Kirkus"...this is, in general, a deftly told account of the Manhattan bourgeoisie's impressively shrewd negotiation of the ever-shifting terrain of the American political and economic landscape. As such, it yields thought-provoking insights into the ways in which power has been - and continues to be - acquired and exercised in the U.S." Publishers Weekly"A fascinating history of New York during the late 19th-century, a time when big money was changing the face of the city....dazzlingly successful." Kirkus Reviews"...he has drawn deftly on an immense body of recent historical work on the period as well on extensive New York archives." William R. Taylor, washingtonpost.com"...an exceptionally vivid and intelligent tour of a revolutionary class at the peak of its domination. It is indispensable for anyone wishing to understand how a profoundly class-bound society managed to convince itself that class was irrelevant to the U.S. experience." " Newark Star LedgerRuth Century contains an explosive theme...Profesor Beckert also draws several illuminating parallels between then and now." Dallas Morning Star"...Mr. Beckert...even in our own post-Marzist age, this approach to history can still bear fruit." The New York Observer"Steven Beckert's sober, scholarly study of New York in the 19th century contains an explosive theme: The wealthy class that ruled Gothsm and the rest of the nation did everything in its power to make sure that the working class did not advance from poverty(wait until you draws serveral illuminating parallels between then and now." Dallas Morning News"Libraries will purchase The Monied Metropolis and historians will cite it." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Synopsis
The first comprehensive history of nineteenth-century New York City's powerful economic elite.
Synopsis
Tracing the shifting fortunes and changing character of New York City's economic elite over half a century, Sven Beckert brings to light a neglected--and critical--chapter in the social history of the U.S.: the rise of an American bourgeoisie. The Monied Metropolis is the first comprehensive history of New York's economic elite, the most powerful group in nineteenth-century America. Beckert explains how a small and diverse group of New Yorkers came to wield unprecedented economic, social, and political power from 1850 to the turn of the twentieth century. He reveals the central role of the Civil War in realigning New York's economic elite, and how the New York bourgeoisie reoriented its ideology during Reconstruction, abandoning the free labor views of the antebellum years for laissez-faire liberalism. Sven Beckert is the Dunwalke Associate at Harvard University. He is the recipient of several honors and fellowships, including the Aby Warburg Foundation prize for academic excellence, a MacArthur Dissertation Fellowship and a Andrew W. Mellon fellowship. This is his first book.
Synopsis
The first comprehensive history of the most powerful group in the nineteenth-century United States: New York City's economic elite. By the end of the Gilded Age upper-class New Yorkers had consolidated themselves into a self-conscious social class that put their stamp on the major issues of the day.
Synopsis
The Monied Metropolis is the first comprehensive history of the most powerful group in the nineteenth-century United States: New York City's economic elite. Using the insights of social history and a burgeoning historiography on the European bourgeoisie, the author examines the business activities of the city's merchants, industrialists, and bankers; describes their flamboyant social life; looks at their politics; and analyzes their view of the world. The Civil War, Reconstruction, labor, and democracy figure largely in the story. By the end of the Gilded Age, the book argues, upper-class New Yorkers had consolidated themselves into a self-conscious social class that put their stamp on the major issues of the day.
Table of Contents
Introduction; Part I. Manners, Fortunes, Politics: 1. Accumulating capital; 2. Negotiating the New Metropolis; 3. The politics of capital; Part II. Reluctant Revolutionaries: 4. Bourgeois New Yorkers go to war; 5. The spoils of victory; 6. Reconstructing New York; Part III: 7. Democracy in the Age of Capital; 8. A Bourgeois world; 9. The rights of labor, the rights of property; 10. The power of capital and the crisis of legitimacy; Epilogue.