"A fascinating political, racial, economic, and cultural tapestry" (Detroit Free Press), Once in a Great City is a tour de force from David Maraniss about the quintessential American city at the top of its game: Detroit in 1963.
Detroit in 1963 is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America: Grandson of the first Ford; Henry Ford II; Motown's founder Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the incredible Aretha; Governor George Romney, Mormon and Civil Rights advocate; car salesman Lee Iacocca; Police Commissioner George Edwards; Martin Luther King. The time was full of promise. The auto industry was selling more cars than ever before. Yet the shadows of collapse were evident even then.
"Elegiac and richly detailed" (The New York Times), in Once in a Great City David Maraniss shows that before the devastating riot, before the decades of civic corruption and neglect, and white flight; before people trotted out the grab bag of rust belt infirmities and competition from abroad to explain Detroit's collapse, one could see the signs of a city's ruin. Detroit at its peak was threatened by its own design. It was being abandoned by the new world economy and by the transfer of American prosperity to the information and service industries. In 1963, as Maraniss captures it with power and affection, Detroit summed up America's path to prosperity and jazz that was already past history. "Maraniss has written a book about the fall of Detroit, and done it, ingeniously, by writing about Detroit at its height....An encyclopedic account of Detroit in the early sixties, a kind of hymn to what really was a great city" (The New Yorker).
Show more"A fascinating political, racial, economic, and cultural tapestry" (Detroit Free Press), Once in a Great City is a tour de force from David Maraniss about the quintessential American city at the top of its game: Detroit in 1963.
Detroit in 1963 is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America: Grandson of the first Ford; Henry Ford II; Motown's founder Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the incredible Aretha; Governor George Romney, Mormon and Civil Rights advocate; car salesman Lee Iacocca; Police Commissioner George Edwards; Martin Luther King. The time was full of promise. The auto industry was selling more cars than ever before. Yet the shadows of collapse were evident even then.
"Elegiac and richly detailed" (The New York Times), in Once in a Great City David Maraniss shows that before the devastating riot, before the decades of civic corruption and neglect, and white flight; before people trotted out the grab bag of rust belt infirmities and competition from abroad to explain Detroit's collapse, one could see the signs of a city's ruin. Detroit at its peak was threatened by its own design. It was being abandoned by the new world economy and by the transfer of American prosperity to the information and service industries. In 1963, as Maraniss captures it with power and affection, Detroit summed up America's path to prosperity and jazz that was already past history. "Maraniss has written a book about the fall of Detroit, and done it, ingeniously, by writing about Detroit at its height....An encyclopedic account of Detroit in the early sixties, a kind of hymn to what really was a great city" (The New Yorker).
Show moreDavid Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and was a finalist three other times. Among his bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s--Rome 1960; Once in a Great City (winner of the RFK Book Prize); and They Marched into Sunlight (winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and Pulitzer Finalist in History).
* A Best Book of 2015 (The Economist) *
* Winner - Robert F. Kennedy Book Award *
"Once in a Great City is incandescent. Through evocative writing
and prodigious research, David Maraniss offers us an unforgettable
portrait of 1963 Detroit, muscular and musical, during the early
days of Motown and the Mustang. Bursting with larger than life
figures from Henry Ford II, Walter Reuther, and Mayor Jerome
Cavanagh, to Berry Gordy, Martin Luther King, and Reverend C.L.
Franklin, Aretha's father, this book is at once the chronicle of a
city during its last fine time and also a classic American story of
promise and loss."--Gay Talese
"[A] glimmering portrait of Detroit . . . that will leave the
reader thoroughly haunted. . . . Once in a Great City has it all:
significant scenes, tremendously charismatic figures, even a starry
soundtrack. . . . Reading about the city in its hey day is like
falling backward in time and running into someone whose youthful
blush you'd completely forgotten. Detroit is that someone. She is
bright and laughing, flickering before you like a specter from the
past. I doubt I'll forget her anytime soon."-- "Bookpage"
"Maraniss . . . undoubtedly will attract notice and focus even more
attention on Detroit. . . . a unique and absorbing take. . . . As
often as authors have told the story of Gordy and the rise of
Motown, Maraniss still captures the vitality and enterprise on West
Grand Boulevard in a fresh way. . . . [Maraniss] is equally adept
at capturing the white-run city's complex racial dynamics at a time
when black leaders were becoming more militant and clashing with
each other over the proper level of assertiveness. Maraniss . . .
is a skillful storyteller, and his interpretation of events in
Detroit a half century ago is well founded. . . . Maraniss will
only add to his reputation with Once in a Great City. It's a good
read if your interest is only to visit Detroit's remarkable recent
past. It's even a better read if you are interested in the city's
extraordinary devolution. In either case, it's a story that is
haunting, thought-provoking and, in the end, sad."--
"DeadlineDETROIT.com"
"The great virtue of Maraniss's bighearted book is that it casts a
wide net, collecting and seeking to synthesize these seemingly
disparate strands. . . . Even where material is familiar, the
connections Maraniss makes among these figures feel fresh. He's
even better on the lesser known. . . . Motown is clearly where
Maraniss's heart is, and it is where his materials--music, race,
civil rights--come together most naturally. . . . You finish Once
in a Great City feeling mildly shattered, which is exactly as it
should be."-- "New York Times Book Review"
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