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ISBN: 9780804197854

Content: " LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE &bull,nbsp,he illuminating , New Yorker ) ,tory ,f the Great Chicago Fire: a raging inferno, a harrowing fight for survival, and the struggle for the soul of a city&mdash,old with the the clarity&mdash,nd tension&mdash,f a well-wrought military narrative ( Wall Street Journal ) In the fall of 1871, Chicagoans knew they were due for the &ldquo,ig one&rdquo,mdash, massive, uncontrollable fire that would decimate the city. It had been bone-dry for months, and a recent string of blazes had nearly outstripped the fire department&rsquo, already scant resources. Then, on October 8, a minor fire broke out in the barn of Irishwoman Kate Leary. A series of unfortunate mishaps and misunderstandings along with insufficient preparation and a high south-westerly wind combined to set the stage for an unmitigated ,atastrophe.  , , ,he conflagration that spread from the Learys' property quickly overtook the neighborhood, and before long the floating embers had been cast to the far reaches of the city. Nothing to the northeast was safe. Families took to the streets with every possession they could carry. Powerful gusts whipped the flames into a terrifying firestorm. The Chicago River boiled. Over the next forty-eight hours, Chicago fell victim to the largest and most destructive natural disaster the United States had yet endured.  , , ,he effects of the Great Fire were devastating. But they were also transforming. Out of the ashes, faster than seemed possible, rose new homes, tenements, hotels, and civic buildings, as well as a new political order. The elite seized the reconstruction to crack down on vice, control the disbursement of vast charitable funds, and rebuild the city in their image. But the city&rsquo, working class recognized only a naked power grab that would challenge their traditions, hurt their chances to keep their hard-earned property, and move power out of the hands of elected officials and into private interests. As soon as the battle against the fire ended, another battle for the future of the city erupted between its entrenched business establishment and its poor and immigrant laborers and shopkeepers.  , , ,n enrapturing account of the fire&rsquo, inexorable march and an eye-opening look at its aftermath, The Burning of the World tells the story of one of the most infamous calamities in history and the new Chicago it precipitated&mdash, disaster that still shapes American cities to this day."

Content: Biographisches: "Born and raised in the Twin Cities, SCOTT W. BERG holds a BA in architecture from the University of Minnesota, an MA from Miami University of Ohio, and an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University, where he now teaches writing and literature. He is the author of Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L&rsquo,nfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C. and 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End ." Rezension(2): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: July 17, 2023 In this vivid and immersive history, Berg ( 38 Nooses ) describes the Great Fire that devastated Chicago in October 1871. Over the course of three days, the conflagration burned more than three square miles of the then 34-year-old city, killed at least 300, and left more than 100,000—a third of its population—homeless. Even before the fire had run its course, the municipal government, led by city council president Charles Holden, set up makeshift headquarters in a church and made arrangements for public safety, food kitchens, and emergency public shelters. Their efforts, as Berg shows, were soon undercut by a coterie of powerful “stakeholders” bent on protecting their property and businesses who, over the objections of the police, enlisted the aid of Chicago resident and Civil War legend Gen. Philip Sheridan to declare martial law. In addition to Holden and Sheridan, Berg provides many other lively character portraits, including of influential Tribune publisher Joseph Medill,dry goods retailer Marshall Field,and real estate tycoon Potter Palmer. As Berg traces the battles between public and private interests that played out in the years after the fire, he astutely observes how the city was transformed into “a hothouse of populist democracy,” with the ever-growing working-class immigrant population, enraged by elite overreach, joining together as a unified voting bloc. This impressively researched account fascinates." Rezension(3): "〈a href=http://www.kirkusreviews.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/kirkus_logo.png alt=Kirkus border=0 /〉〈/a〉: August 1, 2023 A complex, capably narrated history of the 1871 fire that remade Chicago. As architecture scholar Berg, author of Grand Avenues and 38 Nooses, observes, the fire of Oct. 8, 1871, did not occur in isolation. The weather had been unusually hot and dry, and between October 2 and October 7, the city's 193 firemen had been summoned to twenty-eight fires whose causes were various, from carelessly discarded cigarettes to grease spills and oil-soaked rags that spontaneously burst into flames, and the fires burned mostly in places newly crowded in the immigration boom. A cow was almost certainly not the cause of the infamous blaze, though the fire that sprang forth that night sparked somewhere in the neighborhood of Irish immigrant Kate Leary's home. As Berg notes, almost all the houses in the West Division were made of pine-wood...a cheap and speedy way to build but one that created tinderboxes. The fire had numerous knock-on effects, as the author shows. Some concerned Leary herself, smeared in a calumniating press,one cause of the blame, it seems, was that her home was spared while so many were not, but another was the fact that she was an Irish immigrant in a time of growing anti-immigrant sentiment and Know-Nothing political activism. One of its chief exponents was Joseph Medill, a newspaper magnate who was devoted to Republican politics and anti-Catholic vituperation. Other players in the drama that Berg lays out, in which powerful economic forces contested to rebuild Chicago in their own image, include merchant Marshall Field and Wilbur Storey, another newspaper publisher whose reporters were instructed never, ever to let the absence of facts get in their way. In the end, their remaking of Chicago helped shape the form of the modern city--architecturally stunning but also sharply segregated by class and race. A strong contribution to the history of not just the fire, but urban America generally. COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. " Rezension(4): "〈a href=https://www.booklistonline.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/booklist_logo.png alt=Booklist border=0 /〉〈/a〉: September 1, 2023 After the hot, dry summer of 1871, Chicagoans knew that their largely wooden city was on borrowed time. The big conflagration hit when the underfunded fire department was already exhausted from fighting a monster blaze the night before and stood no chance against what became known as the Great Fire. Berg does an excellent job narrating the events of those terrible days before introducing his main character, Joseph Medill, publisher of the Chicago Tribune. Medill's desperate attempt to save the newspaper and get the news out is highly detailed. Berg then turns to the political machinations that installed Medill in the mayor's office on the Union-Fireproof ticket. What follows is a so-called nonpartisan campaign by capitalist elites to take away home ownership, upward mobility, beer, and democracy from the majority of Chicagoans, actions that invited a backlash from working people still evident in the city today. Berg's history is a comprehensive, empathetic look at a great catastrophe and the uniquely American response to tragedy. For another perspective, pair it with Chicago's Great Fire (2020) by Carl Smith. COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. "

Language: English

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