The Loop: The ‘L’ Tracks that Shaped and Saved Chicago by Patrick T. Reardon Southern Illinois University Press Reviewed by Mary Wisniewski There are lovelier and more prestigious symbols of Chicago than […]
Patrick T. Reardon, a regular contributor to Third Coast Review, recently released his new book, The Loop: The “L” Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago (SIU Press). More than a history of […]
Part 1 of Two Parts. Carl Smith’s Chicago’s Great Fire, published in August by Atlantic Monthly Press, is an important book of Chicago history, and a rousing crackerjack work that’s highly readable […]
Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City by Carl Smith Atlantic Monthly Press Devastation is devastation, whether brought about by fire or pandemic. The Great Chicago Fire […]
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth and Power by Deirdre Mask St. Martin’s Press In her introduction to The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, […]
Part 1 of this article can be found here. The original inspiration for this article came from a reference in the WPA Guide to Illinois, created by the Federal Writers’ Project. One itinerary advised […]
Note: As a pleasant side effect of the BLM protests, several statues of slavers, traitors, and genocidal invaders have been defaced, toppled, or removed from public view worldwide. Thus far, Chicago statuary […]
Cities of the American West: A History of Frontier Urban Planning By John W. Reps Princeton University Press, 827 pages, out of print, available on the internet starting at $40 Part Two […]
Cities of the American West A History of Frontier Urban Planning By John W. Reps Princeton University Press, 827 pages, available on the internet starting at $40 Part One of Two Parts […]
Roots of the Black Chicago Renaissance: New Negro Writers, Artists and Intellectuals 1893–1930 Edited by Richard A. Courage and Christopher Robert Reed University of Illinois Press, 296 pages, $28 In November 1904, […]
Like many Chicagoans, Susan Kelsey was likely familiar with Caldwell Woods and the Billy Caldwell Golf Course on the northwest side, but her first introduction to the historical figure behind the name […]
Many very good and even great books have been written about Chicago, and, based on my half century of writing about the city, here are the 10 that, at the moment, I […]
