City of the Century
The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America

I gained much knowledge about my hometown by reading this. I knew the general history but not all of the details. The recent shutdown of a political candidate's visit made me proud of my city & as I am miles away from visiting there at the present moment, needed a reminder of all I love about the Wi......more

A sprawling, comprehensive history of Chicago in the 19th Century, when the city rose from a swampy trading post to one of the greatest industrial metropolises of the world. My only reservation is that I’ve already read about many of Miller’s major subjects (Pullman, the stockyards, the 1893 World’s......more

I'd never read a general history of Chicago covering the nineteenth century before, just books about specific topics or ones about more contemporary events. This one ranges from the retreat of the last glaciers through the Columbian Exposition with especial attention to the physical character of the......more

I was honestly a little surprised by how much I ended up liking this book. The beginning of it felt oddly old-fashioned: the descriptions of Marquette and Jolliet's expedition to the northern Mississippi felt like it belong in an earlier generation of history books. However, as the book went on, it......more

This was an epic history of Chicago and indeed much of 19th century America, as true to the title, much of what happened in Chicago had lasting impacts on the rest of the United States in the 19th, 20th, and even arguably the 21st centuries. The book can be read several ways, the author succeeding i......more