Once In A Great City: A Detroit Story

by David Maraniss Narrated by David Maraniss

Overview

“A fascinating political, racial, economic, and cultural tapestry” (Detroit Free Press), Once in a Great City is a tour de force from David Maraniss about the quintessential American city at the top of its game: Detroit in 1963.

Detroit in 1963 is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America: Grandson of the first Ford; Henry Ford II; Motown's founder Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the incredible Aretha; Governor George Romney, Mormon and Civil Rights advocate; car salesman Lee Iacocca; Police Commissioner George Edwards; Martin Luther King. The time was full of promise. The auto industry was selling more cars than ever before. Yet the shadows of collapse were evident even then.

“Elegiac and richly detailed” (The New York Times), in Once in a Great City David Maraniss shows that before the devastating riot, before the decades of civic corruption and neglect, and white flight; before people trotted out the grab bag of rust belt infirmities and competition from abroad to explain Detroit's collapse, one could see the signs of a city's ruin. Detroit at its peak was threatened by its own design. It was being abandoned by the new world economy and by the transfer of American prosperity to the information and service industries. In 1963, as Maraniss captures it with power and affection, Detroit summed up America's path to prosperity and jazz that was already past history. “Maraniss has written a book about the fall of Detroit, and done it, ingeniously, by writing about Detroit at its height....An encyclopedic account of Detroit in the early sixties, a kind of hymn to what really was a great city” (The New Yorker).

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2016 - AudioFile

David Maraniss, a Detroit native, calls this audiobook an "urban biography" of his hometown. He thoroughly examines a key period: 1962-64. As narrator, his voice is steady, helping to build the big picture as he reveals that period in Detroit's life as a microcosm of the city's history—and the nation's. The stories of Motown legends like Aretha Franklin and Berry Gordy are interwoven with Ford ad campaigns, a historic Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, and an Olympics bid, which failed. Some stories—such as the one about John F. Kennedy's visit with a Hungarian refugee and another about the aftermath of a police shooting—reflect on today's headlines across the nation. Maraniss’s book provides historical background and context for the current story of Detroit's rebirth. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Gay Talese

Once in a Great City is incandescent. Through evocative writing and prodigious research, David Maraniss offers us an unforgettable portrait of 1963 Detroit, muscular and musical, during the early days of Motown and the Mustang. Bursting with larger than life figures from Henry Ford II, Walter Reuther, and Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, to Berry Gordy, Martin Luther King, and Reverend C.L. Franklin, Aretha's father, this book is at once the chronicle of a city during its last fine time and also a classic American story of promise and loss.

Library Journal

04/15/2015
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author (e.g., First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton), Detroit-born Maraniss argues that the city didn't fall because of riots or rust-belt issues. In 1963, it boasted leading lights from Henry Ford II to Motown founder Berry Gordy; Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech there first. Yet in this final golden moment the world stood ready to pass Detroit by.

FEBRUARY 2016 - AudioFile

David Maraniss, a Detroit native, calls this audiobook an "urban biography" of his hometown. He thoroughly examines a key period: 1962-64. As narrator, his voice is steady, helping to build the big picture as he reveals that period in Detroit's life as a microcosm of the city's history—and the nation's. The stories of Motown legends like Aretha Franklin and Berry Gordy are interwoven with Ford ad campaigns, a historic Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, and an Olympics bid, which failed. Some stories—such as the one about John F. Kennedy's visit with a Hungarian refugee and another about the aftermath of a police shooting—reflect on today's headlines across the nation. Maraniss’s book provides historical background and context for the current story of Detroit's rebirth. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171148782
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,168,815

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