David Anthony Witter was born in Miller, Indiana—“across the lagoon from Nelson Algren’s summer home,” as he puts it—but has spent most of his life in Chicago. Growing up in 1970s Lincoln […]
A History of the Chicago Portage: The Crossroads That Made Chicago and Helped Make America By Benjamin Sells Northwestern University Press Let me tell you: I’m a huge Chicago history nerd, and […]
Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago By Brian McCammack Harvard University Press For African Americans who took part in the Great Migration in the first half of the […]
Move on Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power By Aaron Cohen University of Chicago Press One of the pleasures of reading Aaron Cohen’s 2019 Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music […]
Queer Legacies: Stories from Chicago’s LGBTQ Archives John D’Emilio University of Chicago Press Reviewed by Carr Harkrader Who doesn’t love a parade? It wouldn’t be completely wrong to describe Queer Legacies: Stories […]
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 […]
