The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

by Thomas J. Sugrue Narrated by Adam Lofbomm

Overview

Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit is now the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of America's racial and economic inequalities, Thomas Sugrue asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today's urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II.

Editorial Reviews

Bruce Nelson

[Sugrue's] disciplined historical engagement with a complex, often in glorious, past offers a compelling model for understanding how race and the Rust Belt converged to create the current impasse. -- America Magazine

America

"Praise for Princeton's previous edition: [Sugrue's] disciplined historical engagement with a complex, often inglorious, past offers a compelling model for understanding how race and the Rust Belt converged to create the current impasse."

Labor History

"Praise for Princeton's previous edition: A splendid book that does no less than transform our understanding of United States history after 1940."

From the Publisher

Winner of the 1998 Bancroft Prize in American History

Winner of the 1997 Philip Taft Prize in Labor History

Winner of the 1996 President's Book Award, Social Science History Association

Winner of the 1997 Best Book in North American Urban History Award, Urban History Association

One of Choice's Outstanding AcademicTitles for 1997

Choice

"[A] first-rate account. . . . With insight and elegance, Sugrue describes the street-by-street warfare to maintain housing values against the perceived encroachment of blacks trying desperately to escape the underbuilt and overcrowded slums."

America

"Praise for Princeton's previous edition: [Sugrue's] disciplined historical engagement with a complex, often inglorious, past offers a compelling model for understanding how race and the Rust Belt converged to create the current impasse."

Reviews in American History

Praise for Princeton's previous edition: Superbly researched and engagingly written."

Detroit Free Press

Praise for Princeton's previous edition: [T]he most interesting, informative, and provocative book on modern Detroit."

In These Times

Praise for Princeton's previous edition: Perhaps by offering a clearer picture of how the urban crisis began, Sugrue brings us a bit closer to finding a way to end it."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177969961
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	12/08/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,058,349

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