The Catskills : Its History and How It Changed America
Silver, Raphael D., Silverman, Stephen M.
Language: English
Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2015
- Hardcover
- Used

Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.Better World Books
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Former library copy. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.
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- Title
- The Catskills : Its History and How It Changed America
- Author
- Silver, Raphael D., Silverman, Stephen M.
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Publication year
- 2015
- Condition
- Very Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 030727215X
- ISBN 13
- 9780307272157
- Item weight
- 3.276 pounds
- Dimensions
- N/A
Stephen Silverman and Raphael Silver tell of the turning points that made the Catskills so vital to the development of America: Henry Hudson’s first spotting the distant blue mountains in 1609; the New York State constitutional convention, resulting in New York’s own Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and its own constitution, causing the ire of the invading British army . . . the Catskills as a popular attraction in the 1800s, with the construction of the Catskill Mountain House and its rugged imitators that offered WASP guests “one-hundred percent restricted” accommodations (“Hebrews will knock vainly for admission”), a policy that remained until the Catskills became the curative for tubercular patients, sending real-estate prices plummeting and the WASP enclave on to richer pastures . . .
Here are the gangsters (Jack “Legs” Diamond and Dutch Schultz, among them) who sought refuge in the Catskill Mountains, and the resorts that after World War II catered to upwardly mobile Jewish families, giving rise to hundreds of hotels inspired by Grossinger’s, the original “Disneyland with knishes”—the Concord, Brown’s Hotel, Kutsher’s Hotel, and others—in what became known as the Borscht Belt and Sour Cream Alps, with their headliners from movies and radio (Phil Silvers, Eddie Cantor, Milton Berle, et al.), and others who learned their trade there, among them Moss Hart (who got his start organizing summer theatricals), Sid Caesar, Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Joan Rivers.
Here is a nineteenth-century America turning away from England for its literary and artistic inspiration, finding it instead in Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and his childhood recollections (set in the Catskills) . . . in James Fenimore Cooper’s adventure-romances, which provided a pastoral history, describing the shift from a colonial to a nationalist mentality . . . and in the canvases of Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederick Church, and others that caught the grandeur of the wilderness and that gave texture, color, and form to Irving’s and Cooper’s imaginings.
Here are the entrepreneurs and financiers who saw the Catskills as a way to strike it rich, plundering the resources that had been likened to “creation,” the Catskills’ tanneries that supplied the boots and saddles for Union troops in the Civil War . . . and the bluestone quarries whose excavated rock became the curbs and streets of the fast-growing Eastern Seaboard.
Here are the Catskills brought fully to life in all of their intensity, beauty, vastness, and lunacy.
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About the Author
RAPHAEL D. SILVER grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a rabbi, and lived in New York City until his death in 2013. A real-estate developer, he founded Silverfilm with his wife, director Joan Micklin Silver, and produced her Hester Street and Crossing Delancey. His first novel, Congregation, was published posthumously.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Better World Books
Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since August 3, 2006
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Better World Books (https://www.BetterWorldBooks.com) is a for-profit, socially conscious business and a global online bookseller that collects and sells new and used books online, matching each purchase with a book donation. Each sale generates funds for literacy and education initiatives in the U.S., the UK, and around the world. Since its launch in 2003, Better World Books has raised $33 million for libraries and literacy, donated over 32 million books, and reused or recycled more than 397 million books.…
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