The state of New York is virtually a nation unto itself. Long one of the most populous states and home of the country’s most dynamic city, New York is geographically strategic, economically prominent, socially diverse, culturally innovative, and politically influential. These characteristics have made New York distinctive in our nation’s history. In New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities, Joanne Reitano brings the history of this great state alive for readers. Clear and accessible, the book features: Primary documents and illustrations in each chapter, encouraging engagement with historical sources and issues Timelines for every chapter, along with lists of recommended reading and websites Themes of labor, liberty, lifestyles, land, and leadership running throughout the text Coverage from the colonial period up through the present day, including the Great Recession and Andrew Cuomo’s governorship Highly readable and up-to-date, New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities is a vital resource for anyone studying, teaching, or just interested in the history of the Empire State.

The state of New York is virtually a nation unto itself. Long one of the most populous states and home of the country’s most dynamic city, New York is geographically strategic, economically prominent, socially diverse, culturally innovative, and politically influential. These characteristics have made New York distinctive in our nation’s history. In New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities, Joanne Reitano brings the history of this great state alive for readers. Clear and accessible, the book features: Primary documents and illustrations in each chapter, encouraging engagement with historical sources and issues Timelines for every chapter, along with lists of recommended reading and websites Themes of labor, liberty, lifestyles, land, and leadership running throughout the text Coverage from the colonial period up through the present day, including the Great Recession and Andrew Cuomo’s governorship Highly readable and up-to-date, New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities is a vital resource for anyone studying, teaching, or just interested in the history of the Empire State.

The Restless City: A Short History of New York from Colonial Times to the Present is a brief, insightful and lively history of the peoples, events and interactions that have formed New York City. Weaving together the shifting currents of economic, political, social, and cultural life, Joanne Reitano shows how New York has acted both as an indicator and a driver of the American experience in its negotiation of evolving urban challenges. The third edition of The Restless City has been updated to include new material on early settler/Native American interactions, and to be more fully inclusive of the outer boroughs of New York. Each chapter features at least two primary sources accompanied by discussion questions for students. Authoritative and comprehensive, The Restless City remains a superior resource for students and scholars interested in the rich history of the nation’s premier urban center.

A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture is the story Mexican migrant creativity in New York City since 9/11 focusing on youth productions in hip hop, the arts and labor advocacy.

"Sometimes that's all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time." These words were spoken by a fictional character in N. K. Jemisin's 2019 utopian novella Emergency Skin. But the idea of saving the world through utopian imaginings has a deep and profound history. At this moment of rupture—with the related crises of the pandemic, racial uprisings, and climate change converging—Utopian Imaginings revisits this history to show how utopian thought and practice offer alternative paths to the future. The third book in the Humanities to the Rescue series, the volume examines both lived and imagined utopian communities from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attentive to the troubled and troubling elements of different spaces and collectives, Utopian Imaginings remains premised in hope, culminating in a series of inspiring exemplars of the utopian potential of the college classroom today.

During the first generations of European settlement in North America, a number of interconnected Northeastern families carved out private empires. In Bound by Bondage, Nicole Saffold Maskiell argues that slavery was a crucial component to the rise and enduring influence of this emergent aristocracy. Dynastic families built prestige based on shared notions of mastery, establishing sprawling manorial estates and securing cross-colonial landholdings and trading networks that stretched from the Northeast to the South, the Caribbean, and beyond. The members of this elite class were mayors, governors, senators, judges, and presidents, and they were also some of the largest slaveholders in the North. Aspirations to power and status, grounded in the political economy of human servitude, ameliorated ethnic and religious rivalries, and united once antagonistic Anglo and Dutch families, ensuring that Dutch networks endured throughout the English and then Revolutionary periods. Using original research drawn from archives across several continents in multiple languages, Maskiell expertly traces the origin of these private familial empires back to the founding generations of the Northeastern colonies and follows their growth to the eve of the American Revolutionary War. Maskiell reveals a multiracial Early America, where enslaved traders, woodsmen, millers, maids, bakers, and groomsmen developed expansive networks of their own that challenged the power of the elites, helping in escapes, in trade, and in simple camaraderie. In Bound by Bondage, Maskiell writes a new chapter in the history of early North America and connects developing Northern networks of merit to the invidious institution of slavery.

Ladies' Day at the Capitol integrates for the first time the history of New York's women lawmakers with the larger story of New York State politics. Through extensive research and interviews, Lauren Kozakiewicz documents New York women's actions as elected officials between 1919 and 1992 and explores how gendered ideas affected their careers and ability to represent women's voices in government. Ladies' Day at the Capitol offers a general framework for understanding the women's legislative careers over time while also providing a deeper look at key lawmakers' specific histories. The study broadens out to include chapters on creating representative organizations of women legislators and women's efforts to champion specific issues. It builds off earlier studies of state legislators that treated women in the aggregate. It complements other, more recent work that takes a state-centered approach to the history of the woman politician. It is unique in the degree to which chapters on New York's political history and women's efforts to win the vote in New York give the reader essential context for the historical analysis.