Part I From War to Peace1 Inspiration 2 Hope 3 Schemes Part II The New World4 Blitz5 Showtime!6 SurprisePart III American Dreams7 Stumble8 Scramble9 Deal
Charlene Mires is Professor of History at Rutgers University-Camden. She is the author of Independence Hall in American Memory and a co-recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
"Capital of the Worldis a rich and fascinating book that both
entertains and enlightens. Mires has an eye for the telling
vignette, a skill for plumbing the archives and interrogating the
documentary and visual record, and an ability to see the large in
the small and vice versa. Although the book's accessibility is sure
to gain it a wide nonacademic readership, scholars, particularly
those with an interest in such topics as the United Nations, modern
U.S. history, civic engagement, and postwar internationalism, will
find it more than worth their time."
*The Journal of American History*
"In what promises to be the definitive account of this story,
Charlene Mires, a former journalist who is now a professor of
history at Rutgers-Camden, relates how the United Nations wound up
in the heart of Manhattan. It is a story, she notes, that has been
largely ignored by most previous historians of the United Nations.
Mires does not limit herself to a bloodless account of bureaucratic
maneuverings; instead, she embeds her narrative in a broader
framework that traces the history of the international organization
back to the early nineteenth century."
*The New England Quarterly*
"This fascinating and extremely detailed story covers the period
from late 1944, before the UN had even been formally created, to
the end of 1946, when the decision was made to locate the
organization in New York City. Based on extensive research, the
book is vividly written in an accessible fashion that is suitable
for a wide audience."
*American Historical Review*
"thoroughly entertaining book"
*SFGate*
"With meticulous research and journalistic verve, Charlene Mires
tells an overlooked story about American engagement with the world.
Writing in a decade when many Americans worry about their nation's
place in the world, Mires reminds us about the excitement that the
newly created United Nations generated not only in big eastern
cities but also in the heartland of the Middle West and Great
Plains. Her fast-moving and always entertaining narrative captures
the optimistic spirit of the 'Greatest Generation.'"
*Carl Abbott,author of How Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of
Urban Change in Western North America*
"Capital of the World is an exceptionally imaginative book that
warrants an exceptionally diverse readership. Charlene Mires, a
former journalist who recognizes the extraordinary in the ordinary,
leverages her skill as a public historian and expertise in material
culture to tell the complicated and surprising story of the
competition to select the site of UN headquarters. By ascribing
meaning to this competition rooted in the defining historical
moment in which it took place, Mires offers us an innovative
transnational history that provides an unexpected twist to
understandings of glocalization."
*Richard H. Immerman,Edward J. Buthusiem Family Distinguished
Faculty Fellow in History, Temple University*
"As World War II was drawing to a close, thought turned to the
structures and location of a new organization for peace and
security. Though a number of countries were vying for the
privilege, in this well-researched tome Charlene Mires focuses on
the frenzied activity in the United States."
*The Historian*
"Ms. Mires provides an entertaining and informative account of
mid-century boosterism and optimism."
*The Wall Street Journal*
"Mires delivers an amusing account of the intense, if not
world-shaking competition for the U.N. headquarters...Although
little was at stake and everyone knows the outcome, Mires works
hard and mostly successfully to hold her readers interest in the
energetic, often-quaint public-relation antics of the 1940s."
*Kirkus*
"The writing is fluid, precise, and exciting."
*Lifelong Dewey*
"Highly informative, well-researched, and narratively
compelling,Capital of the Worldstands as a singularly important
work that will appeal to students and general readers of urban
history, diplomacy, economics, architecture, American studies, and
the history of New York."
*New York History*
"Most know that UN headquarters rest in midtown Manhattan
overlooking the East River, but what many do not knowand what
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Mires delivers in this
entertaining accountare the improbable twists and turns the
organization took in settling on that location. In a refreshing
turn, Mires offers insight into a period that lies midway between
the booster strategies of the nineteenth century...and the more
intense place marketing and branding efforts of cities around the
world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century,"
keeping the story firmly focused on the efforts to determine a
location while leaving the more minute details of the UN's
formation for other scholars to explain. As a result we are treated
to ambitious visions of a world capital tucked into South Dakota's
Black Hills, or isolated Sugar Island near Sault Ste. Marie,
Michigan. The quick dissolution of plans calling for 40 to 50
square miles of landone can hardly imagine Westchester County, New
York, as home to a teeming international metropolisto a mere parcel
in New York City deftly summarizes the grand ambition and brief
optimism of lasting peace that permeated existed after the end of
WWII."
*Publishers Weekly*
"Do you want to knowa little known fact about Philadelphia? This
nation's first capital was in the running to become the globe's
first capital too! Nowadays, many refer to New York City as the
'cultural capital of the world,' for various and obvious reasons.
Beyond the apparent diversity of its inhabitants, New York City has
hosted the United Nations headquarters for over 60 years, hence the
'world capital.' Back in the 1940s, New York City was not a shoe-in
location however; over 200 cities and townships throughout the
globe strived, campaigned and lobbied to become the host of the
United Nations Headquarters. Philly was not only one of the
hundreds competing to become this global capital, but it just about
persuaded the world's diplomats to call Philadelphia home - until
an unexpected turn of events."
*Historical Society of Pennsylvania*
"Mires has tracked down elusive archival sources and forgotten
newspaper accounts, uncovering a fascinating chronicle involving
countless American politicians, foreign diplomats, and community
promoters who participated in the feverish lobbying campaign that
at times resembled an Atlantic City beauty contest...While plenty
of books address the creation of the United Nations, Mires provides
an important supplement showing how the idealistic search to
establish the physical presence of the fledgling organization gave
way to the cold realities of the marketplace."
*Library Journal*
"Polls have repeatedly indicated that many New Yorkers wouldn't
mind if the UN left their city lock, stock, and barrel, taking its
bureaucracy and parking-violating diplomats along. The irony is not
lost on Mires, for, as she reveals in her surprising and often
amusing work, New York won" the privilege to host the UN after a
furious, sometimes sad, and sometimes comical competition with
other cities and locales. Some of the competitors were seriously
considered, including San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and even
an Ontario Island near Niagara Falls. Others, including the Black
Hills of South Dakota, never had a chance. Mires shows how the
competition was triggered by a combination of municipal pride,
boosterism, and an eagerness to reap the financial rewards that
were expected to accrue to the host city. Mires also captures the
pervading sense of optimism amongst the claimants after the horrors
of WWII. This is a very readable, entertaining account that is
aimed at a general audience."
*Booklist*
"engaging, well-written work"
*CHOICE*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |