A People's Guide to Greater Boston - by Joseph Nevins & Suren Moodliar & Eleni Macrakis (Paperback)

About the Book

"Herein, we bring you to sites that have been central to the lives of 'the people' of Greater Boston over four centuries. You'll visit sites associated with the area's indigenous inhabitants and with the individuals and movements who sought to abolish slavery, to end war, challenge militarism, and bring about a more peaceful world, to achieve racial equity, gender justice, and sexual liberation, and to secure the rights of workers. We take you to some well-known sites, but more often to ones far off the well-beaten path of the Freedom Trail, to places in Boston's outlying neighborhoods. We also visit sites in numerous other municipalities that make up the Greater Boston region-from places such as Lawrence, Lowell and Lynn to Concord and Plymouth. The sites to which we do 'travel' include homes given that people's struggles, activism, and organizing sometimes unfold, or are even birthed in many cases in living rooms and kitchens. Trying to capture a place as diverse and dynamic as Boston is highly challenging. (One could say that about any 'big' place.) We thus want to make clear that our goal is not to be comprehensive, or to 'do justice' to the region. Given the constraints of space and time as well as the limitations of knowledge--both our own and what is available in published form--there are many important sites, cities, and towns that we have not included. Thus, in exploring scores of sites across Boston and numerous municipalities, our modest goal is to paint a suggestive portrait of the greater urban area that highlights its long-contested nature. In many ways, we merely scratch the region's surface--or many surfaces--given the multiple layers that any one place embodies. In writing about Greater Boston as a place, we run the risk of suggesting that the city writ-large has some sort of essence. Indeed, the very notion of a particular place assumes intrinsic characteristics and an associated delimited space. After all, how can one distinguish one place from another if it has no uniqueness and is not geographically differentiated? Nonetheless, geographer Doreen Massey insists that we conceive of places as progressive, as flowing over the boundaries of any particular space, time, or society; in other words, we should see places as processual or ever-changing, as unbounded in that they shape and are shaped by other places and forces from without, and as having multiple identities. In exploring Greater Boston from many venues over 400 years, we embrace this approach. That said, we have to reconcile this with the need to delimit Greater Boston--for among other reasons, simply to be in a position to name it and thus distinguish it from elsewhere"--

Book Synopsis

A People's Guide to Greater Boston reveals the region's richness and vibrancy in ways that are neglected by traditional area guidebooks and obscured by many tourist destinations. Affirming the hopes, interests, and struggles of individuals and groups on the receiving end of unjust forms of power, the book showcases the ground-level forces shaping the city. Uncovering stories and places central to people's lives over centuries, this guide takes readers to sites of oppression, resistance, organizing, and transformation in Boston and outlying neighborhoods and municipalities--from Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn to Concord and Plymouth. It highlights tales of the places and people involved in movements to abolish slavery; to end war and militarism; to achieve Native sovereignty, racial equity, gender justice, and sexual liberation; and to secure workers' rights. In so doing, this one-of-a-kind guide points the way to a radically democratic Greater Boston, one that sparks social and environmental justice and inclusivity for all.

From the Back Cover

"More than just a guide book, this is truly a people's history of Boston and its surroundings. Theoretically rich and beautifully illustrated, it tackles race, inequality, environment, settler colonialism, labor, and more as it takes readers on detailed tours of the area's well-known and unknown landmarks. A must for anyone who wants to get beyond tourist boosterism and glimpse the complicated histories just beneath the city's surface."--Aviva Chomsky, Professor of History, Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class

"This People's Guide brings into focus the rich history of radical organizing in the greater Boston area, providing a comprehensive look at the places where organizers lived, worked, and played. Tracing the steps of the innumerable people who, mostly unknown, contributed mightily to the wave of movement building and organizing is especially important--reminding us that ordinary people create extraordinary history."--Demita Frazier, founding member of the Combahee River Collective, coauthor of the Combahee River Collective Statement

Review Quotes

"One of our favorite books of 2020."-- "New England Historical Society"

"A new kind of guidebook to Boston and surrounding towns . . . [that's] less Lonely Planet and more Howard Zinn. . . . Instead of giving an overview of the Freedom Trail and introducing readers to the hot restaurants and hotels of Boston, this guide uncovers the forgotten stories of radicals and activists hidden in every neighborhood and suburb." -- "HUBHistory"

"This book makes history intimate, showing how we must be constantly vigilant against every attempt at depriving us of a quality of life worth working for. Reading this book should inspire and hopefully empower. It does more than scratch the surface."-- "Socialism and Democracy"

"Think you know all about Boston? Think again. 3 local co-authors comb through centuries of Greater Boston's history to discover untold stories from underrepresented communities. . . . Not your average guidebook."-- "GBH"

"It's a timely, intelligent, and necessary guide, one that deepens our understanding of where we live now and reminds us of the power that regular citizens have to work against powers and systems that are, now as then, in urgent need of change."-- "Boston Globe"

About the Author

Joseph Nevins was born and raised in the Dorchester section of Boston and is Professor of Geography at Vassar College. His books include A Not-so-distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor; Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid; and Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on "Illegals" and the Remaking of the US-Mexico Boundary.

Suren Moodliar, a resident of Chelsea, Massachusetts, is both coordinator of encuentro5, a movement building space in Downtown Boston, and editor of the journal Socialism and Democracy. He coedited Noam Chomsky's Internationalism or Extinction (2020). He completed an MA in Political Science and African Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Eleni Macrakis grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and now works in the field of affordable housing development in the Greater Boston area. She holds a Master in Urban Planning from Harvard University.