******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-rev...@lists.h-net.org> > Date: May 3, 2020 at 9:24:41 AM EDT > To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > Cc: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.org> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-California]: Malka on Ryan, 'Taking the Land to > Make the City: A Bicoastal History of North America' > Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > > Mary P. Ryan. Taking the Land to Make the City: A Bicoastal History > of North America. Austin University of Texas Press, 2019. > Illustrations. 448 pp. $40.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4773-1783-9. > > Reviewed by Adam Malka (University of Oklahoma) > Published on H-California (May, 2020) > Commissioned by Khal Schneider > > In this conceptually ambitious history of pre-Civil War Baltimore and > San Francisco, Mary P. Ryan seeks to understand what the history of > these two cities can reveal about the history of the American nation > of which they were both, eventually, a part. I say "ambitious" > because in the broadest sense Ryan advances several broad > historiographical arguments on the importance of urban history to > North American history: that large municipalities nurtured democracy > no less than did the supposed rugged individuals of the agricultural > frontier; that it was in cosmopolitan centers where capitalism was > propelled and, in occasionally surprising ways, altered; and that > metropolises like Baltimore and San Francisco provide an entirely > different vantage point to understand the political geography of the > Civil War era. But above all, this is a book about the simultaneous > making of cities and the formation of the United States, and about > how the two were often one and the same. For in Ryan's hands, cities > were more than mere sites where the US nation formed. They were, > perhaps, the essential sites. > > Ryan organizes _Taking the Land to Make the City _into four sections. > Part 1 looks at the geographic practices of the indigenous people who > inhabited the Chesapeake and San Francisco Bays for several thousand > years before European contact--the ancestors of the Powhatans and the > Ohlone, respectively--and then narrates how the English and Spanish > (again, respectively) took the land and began converting it into > individual parcels of private property. The brutal European > expropriation of Indian land did not produce the cities of Baltimore > and San Francisco immediately, but it did establish the social, > economic, and political foundations upon which such city making could > proceed. Part 2 then moves into the heart of Ryan's story, describing > how settlers during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth > centuries began to produce their urban spaces. Along the Chesapeake, > a mixture of public and private actors worked together, sometimes > tensely and other times harmoniously, to build the row houses, > impressive monuments, and orthogonal streets that characterize > Baltimore to this day. Meanwhile, around the bay of San Francisco, > _pobladores_ (settlers) like Francisco de Haro created what Ryan > calls "a new and distinctive landscape, one that extended out into > ranchland, came together around a plaza, and acquired the legitimacy > of a pueblo" (p. 173). Although they took different paths, and > although they drew from different geographic traditions, the local > inhabitants of these blossoming cities practiced a popular form of > self-government that had "lasting consequences" for both the Mexican > and US republics (p. 127). > > The second half of the book examines the rise of Baltimore and San > Francisco as modern, capitalist metropolises. Part 3, which consists > of two of the book's most fascinating chapters, narrates how by the > 1850s each city came to resemble the other in terms of power and > size. The paths they took, however, diverged. Baltimore's tale > involved an energetic municipality allied with an ever-growing > private sector: "as private corporations claimed their private rights > and privileges, the mayor, city council, and taxpayers were left with > a growing burden of public responsibilities" (p. 256). San > Francisco's tale, meanwhile, grew out of the US annexation of Alta > California, the Gold Rush, and the frantic land grab that followed. > The end result of all this rushing and all this grabbing was a > distinctly Californian urban landscape, one that did not replicate > Baltimore's grid so much as it wrote "a pattern of blocks, lots, and > an occasional public square" down the peninsula and toward the > Pacific shore (p. 306). The makers of Baltimore and San Francisco > made use of land according to their own local logics, and they would > continue to do so even as the US fractured along sectional lines. > Part 4 concludes this story of two cities with an east-west > perspective, and with urban residents taking still-more territory and > building still-more houses and streets during the tumultuous 1860s. > As Ryan notes, the sale of city lots did not stop for the Civil War; > indeed, it did not stop for anything. She concludes that the US > nation's triumph over sectionalism, slavery, and slaughter was "due > in no small part to the history made in cities," where a polyglot of > peoples and interests formed an intersecting network around which the > postwar world would be built (p. 321). > > The power of Ryan's arguments about popular democracy, urban > capitalism, and national formation rests in the granular nature of > her analysis. By reconstructing the processes by which Baltimore and > San Francisco were charted, mapped, and built, she intervenes in and > occasionally reshapes a number of ongoing debates. Her discussion of > the marriage of public and private actors in Baltimore, and of the > ways that democratic politics and private capital reinforced each > other, provides welcome nuance, for instance, to the narrative of > urban development specifically and nineteenth-century American > political development more generally. "There was something more > complicated at work than an abrupt transition from a private to a > public city (or vice versa)," writes Ryan. "As private corporations > claimed their private rights and privileges, the mayor, city council, > and taxpayers were left with a growing burden of responsibilities" > (pp. 255-56). Meanwhile, Ryan's detailed discussion of the > speculative frenzy that erupted over San Francisco real estate in the > aftermath of the Mexican Cession and Gold Rush continues the > important work of scholars like Maria Montoya by showing precisely > what happened when two legal systems and political economies > converged in the most cherished bay of the Mexican Cession. Perhaps > most importantly, Ryan's careful attention to the messy mechanics of > land speculation sheds much-needed light on the mapmakers, > financiers, property assessors, lawyers, and politicians usually > hidden by passive sentence constructions in other historians' work. > And these are just a few examples out of many. With remarkable > attention to detail, Ryan weaves deftly between the fields of > political geography, vernacular architecture, and urban history to > make the persuasive case that cities were incubators of American > democracy, American capitalism, and the American nation itself. > > In the broadest sense, _Taking the Land to Make the City _is an ode > to the nineteenth-century metropolis and a tribute, in particular, to > early Baltimore and San Francisco. Ryan thus adopts an almost elegiac > tone, but this occasionally leads to some analytical trouble. It is > jarring to read celebratory accounts of settlers and their > descendants in a book that is also a story of settler colonialism. It > is likewise curious that her thorough examination of geographic > commoditization leads Ryan to conclude that "our cities serve as an > admonition not to take but to tend the waters and the land" (p. 15). > Perhaps most perplexing is the place of race. Although clear-eyed > about the ways that white Baltimoreans and San Franciscans delimited > the democratic potential of their "streets, squares, plazas, > neighborhoods, and vigorous municipal institutions," Ryan often > partitions her considerations of racism to the end of chapters or > sections, an organizational choice that implies "the political > energy, relative economic equality, and urban pleasure that once > thrived" in nineteenth-century cities was either incomplete or not > yet complete (p. 365). Many historians have shown that the supposed > energy, equality, and pleasure of American cities was _constitutive_ > of the racism that flourished on their streets and in their > neighborhoods, and to separate any discussion of urban racism from > that of urban democracy can be misleading. > > Ryan is less interested ultimately in the implications of urban > exclusionary practices than she is invested in reconstructing the > redemption and hope of urban spaces. There are advantages to this > choice. _Taking the Land to Make the City_ is an elegant portrait of > early Baltimore and San Francisco that is as enjoyable as it is > insightful. It offers a convincing case for the centrality of urban > history to the metanarratives of early US history and deserves to be > widely read. > > Citation: Adam Malka. Review of Ryan, Mary P., _Taking the Land to > Make the City: A Bicoastal History of North America_. H-California, > H-Net Reviews. May, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54576 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
