City of Dreams

By an acclaimed historian, a sweeping history of the peoples who have come to New York for four centuries: a quintessential American story.From Peter Minuit in 1626 to the city's more than three million foreign-born residents today, New York has been America's defining port of entry, a magnet for transplants from all over the globe. These migrants have brought their hundreds of languages and distinct cultures to the city, and from there, to the entire country. More immigrants have come to New York than all other entry points combined. City of Dreams is the first book to tell the entire, clamorous history of immigrant New York. It is peopled with memorable characters both beloved and unfamiliar, whose lives unfold in rich detail: the young man from the Caribbean who passed through New York on his way to becoming a Founding Father; the German family who built the world's foremost piano business from their factory in Astoria, Queens; the ten-year-old Angelo Siciliano, from Calabria, who transformed into Charles Atlas, bodybuilder. Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs, all playing out against the powerful backdrop of New York City, at once ever-changing and profoundly, permanently itself. City of Dreams is a defining American story, never before told with such breadth of scope, lavish research, and resounding spirit.