“Like Russia, New York City inspires big, doorstop-size books, epitomized by the six-volume Iconography of Manhattan Island by I.N. Phelps Stokes (published between 1915 and 1928, weighing in at 35 pounds),” says our reviewer Jean Zimmerman.
The picture swims into clearer focus when we realize that Gotham, the brand-name-style moniker employed by Mike Wallace for Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919, his follow-up to the Pulitzer winning Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (written with Edwin G. Burrows), is in English folklore a town — originally “Goat Town” — where all the inhabitants pretend to be insane. So, madness, at great length.
