The Village - by John Strausbaugh (Paperback)

About the Book

Cultural commentator John Strausbaugh's The Village is the first complete history of Greenwich Village, the prodigiously influential and infamous New York City neighborhood. From the Dutch settlers and Washington Square patricians, to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and Prohibition-era speakeasies; from Abstract Expressionism and beatniks, to Stonewall and AIDS, the connecting narratives of The Village tell the story of America itself. Illustrated with historic black-and-white photographs, The Village features lively, well-researched profiles of many of the people who made Greenwich Village famous, including Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Twain, Margaret Sanger, Eugene O'Neill, Marcel Duchamp, Upton Sinclair, Willa Cather, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Jackson Pollock, Anais Nin, Edward Albee, Charlie Parker, W. H. Auden, Woody Guthrie, James Baldwin, Maurice Sendak, E. E. Cummings, and Bob Dylan.

Book Synopsis

Cultural commentator John Strausbaugh's The Village is the first complete history of Greenwich Village, the prodigiously influential and infamous New York City neighborhood.

From the Dutch settlers and Washington Square patricians, to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and Prohibition-era speakeasies; from Abstract Expressionism and beatniks, to Stonewall and AIDS, the connecting narratives of The Village tell the story of America itself.

Illustrated with historic black-and-white photographs, The Village features lively, well-researched profiles of many of the people who made Greenwich Village famous, including Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Twain, Margaret Sanger, Eugene O'Neill, Marcel Duchamp, Upton Sinclair, Willa Cather, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Jackson Pollock, Anais Nin, Edward Albee, Charlie Parker, W. H. Auden, Woody Guthrie, James Baldwin, Maurice Sendak, E. E. Cummings, and Bob Dylan.

From the Back Cover

The brilliantly lively, anecdotal biography of Greenwich Village, infamous and prodigiously influential, from the 1600s to the present

Review Quotes

"The very best kind of cultural history: Literate, lucid, erudite, and entertaining." - Michael Lesy, author of Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties

"A great, sprawling saga of genius and vice in New York City's Greenwich Village. John Strausbaugh captures Bohemia at its best and level worst, reminding us why we love this place. His account is breathtaking." - Teresa Carpenter, bestselling author of New York Diaries

"Strausbaugh has produced the definitive history of America's bohemian wellspring and prototypical modern neighborhood with all the verve and fun and rigor it deserves." - Kurt Andersen, bestselling author of True Believers and Heyday

"An engaging, scholarly, and vivid evocation of a neighborhood that's been, seen, and done everything and everyone." - Mark Caldwell, author of New York Night

"A dizzying array of historical figures and events so salacious the book reads more like one long gossip column full of sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, art, music, the mob, and more. For long stretches, the pages practically turn themselves" - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Brilliant . . . the whole world iswelcomedto come down below FourteenthStreet to feel at home in the Village. I learned more about the history of Greenwich Village by reading this book than I did during the forty years I lived there." - David Amram, Composer, Conductor, Multi-Instrumentalist, and author of Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac

"[A] loving and thoroughly researched look at what [Strausbaugh] calls 'a zone of rogues and outcasts from the start.' . . . Fine social history humanized with a sort of paradise-lost wistfulness." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A dynamic history of Greenwich Village, thoroughly researched and rich in anecdotal comment. It will take you on a great ride and introduce you to everyone from Edgar Allen Poe to the Beats. There is so much more to the Village than today's Marc Jacobs stores and Sex and the City bus tours. Strausbaugh has captured the true essence of the Village--a working class stronghold and a cradle of genuine American culture--and has presented readers with a great absorbing read." - Dermot McEvoy, author of Our Lady of Greenwich Village and Terrible Angel

"Hail, hail the gang's all here: a galaxy of scoundrels, artists and geniuses commingle in [The Village]. . . Strausbaugh maintains a nigh-on impeccable balance between affection and skepticism, especially in his sardonic accounts of present-day Village scenes... How rare and refreshing it is to find a chronicler who can remain dry-eyed and funny while describing the Village's transformation from laboratory for change to "Sex and the City" tour stop." - New York Times Book Review

"Strausbaugh. . . traces the Village's role as a culture engine, a bastion of tolerance, freedom, creativity, and activism that has spurred cultural change on a national, and sometimes even international, scale. . . The connecting narratives tell the fresh and unforgettable story of America itself." - Metro

"The Village takes a long-view perspective, conjuring the sense of giddy possibility and counter-cultural energy that preceded the punk scene." - Vogue