Adventures in Research - Replies

The big fat book is A History of Islamic Societies, by Ira Lapidus. I'm not far into it yet, but I'm still enjoying it tremendously. It's opening a world that we were certainly never taught about in school.

The thinner book is New York Unexpurgated (or maybe it's Unexpurgated New York) by "Petronius." As I read on further it became clear to me that about a third of it was simply made-up out of salacious sensationalism because "Petronius" was a little short on his word-count... but I think there's real stuff in there about the flavor of districts and the atmosphere of certain parts of the city, though I actually don't think there was QUITE that much partner-swapping going on even in 1966. (Maybe I'm naive). And the section about orgies is just silly. However, the true gold is a slender little section toward the end: his "tourists don't care about this" guide to not-so-famous places. Where did Diamond Jim Brady live, where was the final show-down between the Dead Rabbits gang and the Swamp Rats back in the mid-nineteenth-century, where were the truly notorious saloons and crimp-joints in 1912? For that section alone, that sense of the long history of criminal New York, I'll keep that one on the shelf, right along with the other AMAZING book about criminal New York in the 1800s, Luc Sante's Low Life (which I'm sure was the main source for Scorsese's Gangs of New York).

A soft gray day, but predicted WAY cold up at the college tonight. Exams all week.
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Published on November 15, 2011 10:38
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