Revolting New York ― How 400 Years of Riot, Rebellion, Uprising, and Revolution Shaped a City

Occupy Wall Street did not come from nowhere. It was part of a long history of riot, revolt, uprising, and sometimes even revolution that has shaped New York City. From the earliest European colonization to the present, New Yorkers have been revolting. Hard hitting, revealing, and insightful, Revolting New York tells the story of New York’s evolution through revolution, a story of near-continuous popular (and sometimes not-so-popular) uprising.

Richly illustrated with more than ninety historical and contemporary images, historical maps, and maps drawn especially for the book, Revolting New York provides the first comprehensive account of the historical geography of revolt in New York, from the earliest uprisings of the Munsee against the Dutch occupation of Manhattan in the seventeenth century to the Black Lives Matter movement and the unrest of the Trump era. Through this rich narrative, editors Neil Smith and Don Mitchell reveal a continuous, if varied and punctuated, history of rebellion in New York that is as vital as the more standard histories of formal politics, planning, economic growth, and restructuring that largely define our consciousness of New York’s story.

Contributors: Marnie Brady, Kathleen Dunn, Zultán Gluck, Rachel Goffe, Harmony Goldberg, Amanda Huron, Malav Kanuga, Esteban Kelly, Manissa McCleave Maharawal, Don Mitchell, Justin Sean Myers, Brendan P. O’Malley, Raymond Pettit, Miguelina Rodriguez, Jenjoy Roybal, McNair Scott, Erin Siodmak, Neil Smith, Peter Waldman, and Nicole Watson.

Neil Smith (1954–2012) was Distinguished Professor of Geography and Anthropology at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and the author of many books, including Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (Georgia).

Don Mitchell is Distinguished Professor of Geography Emeritus at Syracuse University and Professor of Cultural Geography at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is the author of several books, including They Saved the Crops: Labor, Landscape, and the Struggle over Industrial Farming in Bracero-Era California (Georgia). He was a MacArthur Fellow in 1998.