Books by Ira Berlin
“Slavery ended in New York in 1827, but leading up to the Civil War, New York City continued to be heavily implicated in slavery. The book also goes well beyond slavery in New York to a different period, which we also followed with a follow-on exhibition called “New York Divided.” The cotton produced in the South was sent to New York. To some extent, there was fabrication of cotton goods in New York, but for the most part, it was shipped overseas. New York companies took enslaved people as collateral. So, New York continued to be heavily involved in the slave economy up through the beginning of the Civil War. It was only after the attack on Fort Sumter that New York began to see itself as a northern city with union sympathies. In fact, Fernando Wood, the mayor of New York City just before the Civil War, suggested seceding on the grounds that “the grass would grow on Broadway,” he said, in the absence of slavery.” Read more...
“Ira Berlin helps us understand that many tributaries flowed into what became American slavery. After Virginia established this system of slavery, enslaved people were brought into South Carolina, Maryland, and Georgia from many different regions of Africa. Each had a different experience of what it was like to be ripped out of their homes and brought to British North America. Ira Berlin shows us that slavery was a vast and complex system.” Read more...
Best Books on the History of the American South
Edward Ayers, Historian
Interviews where books by Ira Berlin were recommended
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1
American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia
by Edmund S Morgan -
2
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
by Ira Berlin -
3
Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps
by Amy Murrell Taylor -
4
The Souls of Black Folk
by W E B Du Bois -
5
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
by C. Vann Woodward
Best Books on the History of the American South, recommended by Edward Ayers
Best Books on the History of the American South, recommended by Edward Ayers
To understand the America of today, you must understand the American South of the past, says historian Edward Ayers, Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities and President Emeritus at the University of Richmond. Here, he recommends five books to get started with, and also explains what his own books were aiming to contribute to the field of Southern history.
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1
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
by Russell Shorto -
2
New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan
by Jill Lepore -
3
Slavery in New York
by Ira Berlin & Leslie Harris (editors) -
4
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940
by George Chauncey -
5
New York and Los Angeles
by David Halle (editor)
The best books on New York History, recommended by Louise Mirrer
The best books on New York History, recommended by Louise Mirrer
Like several of the great cities of the world, New York’s openness to people born elsewhere and relative tolerance lay at the foundation of its success, though darker episodes in the city’s 400-year history also need attention. Historian Louise Mirrer, President of the New-York Historical Society, recommends books that are essential to understanding the essence of the Big Apple.
