I have been slogging my way through Thomas Dyja's The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream for the past two weeks. The premise drew me in - in the middle of the 20th century, Chicago was the American city. And Dyja forcefully and eloquently makes the case that Chicago was the American city for better (art and architecture) or for worse (corruption and racism). Still, after 200 pages (our of 412), I decided to end the slog.
The trouble is that this reader, at least, couldn't see the forest - Chicago - for the trees - all of the individuals who contributed to the city's rise in one way or another. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy certainly made important contributions, as did each of the dozens of other characters, but the story of the city got lost in their biographical details. I would have loved a less detailed history that focused more heavily on the events, rather than the people behind the events.
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