Book : Fear City New Yorks Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of...

-Titulo Original : Fear City New Yorks Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of Austerity Politics

-Fabricante :

Picador

-Descripcion Original:

About the Author Kim Phillips-Fein is a professor of history at New York University and the author of Invisible Hands: The Businessmens Crusade Against the New Deal. A recipient of grants from the New York Public Librarys Cullman Center and the National Endowment for the Humanities, she has written for The Nation, Dissent, The Baffler, The Atlantic, and The New York Times, among other publications. PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTAn epic, riveting history of New York City on the edge of disaster and an anatomy of the austerity politics that continue to shape the world todayWhen the news broke in 1975 that New York City was on the brink of fiscal collapse, few believed it was possible. How could the country’s largest metropolis fail? How could the capital of the financial world go bankrupt? Yet the city was indeed billions of dollars in the red, with no way to pay back its debts. Bankers and politicians alike seized upon the situation as evidence that social liberalism, which New York famously exemplified, was unworkable. The city had to slash services, freeze wages, and fire thousands of workers, they insisted, or financial apocalypse would ensue.In this vivid account, historian Kim Phillips-Fein tells the remarkable story of the crisis that engulfed the city. With unions and ordinary citizens refusing to accept retrenchment, the budget crunch became a struggle over the soul of New York, pitting fundamentally opposing visions of the city against each other. Drawing on never-before-used archival sources and interviews with key players in the crisis, Fear City shows how the brush with bankruptcy permanently transformed New York and reshaped ideas about government across America.At once a sweeping history of some of the most tumultuous times in New Yorks past, a gripping narrative of last-minute machinations and backroom deals, and an origin story of the politics of austerity, Fear City is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the resurgent fiscal conservatism of today.Fear City is one of Publishers Weeklys Top 10 Best Books of 2017, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History Review “A powerful and involving work of narrative history... You come away from Fear City with a clear sense of what was lost as New York left behind one set of priorities and embraced another.... This is a book that deserves an audience beyond New York City history buffs, and all the more so because of its relevance to our political moment. The young Donald Trump makes a brief cameo appearance as an icon of the new New York, a real estate mogul who leveraged his father’s connections and the city’s desperation into massive tax breaks, starving the city of badly needed revenues for education and other basic municipal functions as he developed properties for the rich. Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times Book Review“Paced like a thriller and extremely well written... Phillips-Fein narrates with almost cinematic flair, and by the time the credits roll, the significance of her accomplishment becomes clear. The book should be required reading for all those interested in the past, present, and future of democratic politics.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Deftly recounts the clash between government entities and vested interests as New York struggled to cope with slashed social service... Given events since, New York’s crisis and the author’s astute account of it seems oddly timely... Sobering, smart reading with many pointed lessons for activists.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Fear City is the best account of the New York City fiscal crisis of the 1970s and, more than that, an indispensable contribution to understanding the rise of austerity economics and the long decline of the public sector. This is a history with huge implications for the remaking of American politics and economics in our time.” Thomas J. Sugrue, author of Origins of the Urban Crisis“The remaking of New York City under cover