It started out a little dry...and very long! But soon I found myself halfway through. There are a lot of characters to try and keep up with, but the book spans about 400 years, beginning with New York's beginnings as a small dutch settlement which only thrived because of a European fashion fad. In other words, the fur trade. Mostly it follows the Dutch Van Dyck family, choosing one line of the family to continue the story and skipping a generation here and there. There are storylines that involve other characters and their descendants as well, although it's hard to keep track of everyone and how they are related! We go through New York during the war for Independance, the Civil War, the Industrial revolution, and the stock market crash of '29. The end becomes riveting, as we all will recognize the contemporary setting and know what is about to come, wondering who survives and who doesn't. There isn't time to get to deeply care about any of the characters, but that simply illustrates the fact that time is fleeting...there is a lot of time to cover, and most of them will die of old age if nothing else long before the end.
All in all, this was a fun way to learn a bit more history, even if it is all told only in the ways it affects the characters directly and is focused in the New York area.