The End of the Hamptons
Scenes from the Class Struggle in America's Paradise
Published on 1. June 2006
Book
Paperback/Softback
277 pages
978-0-8147-1997-8 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the 2005 Book Prize from the Association for Humanist Sociology
A portrait of the contentious, controversial history of the Manhattan elite's favorite fabled summer playground
In this absorbing account of New York's famous vacation playground, Corey Dolgon goes beyond the celebrity tales and polo games to tell us the story of this complex and contentious land. From the displacement of Native Americans by the Puritans to the first wave of Manhattan elites who built the Summer Colony, to the current infusion of telecommuting Manhattanites who now want to live there year-round, the story of the Hamptons is a vicious cycle of supposed paradise lost.
Drawing on this fabled land's history, The End of the Hamptons provides a fascinating portrait of current controversies: the Native Americans fighting over land claims and threatening to build a casino, the environmental activists clashing with the McMansion builders, and the Latino day laborers and working-class natives trying to eke out a living in an ever-increasingly expensive town.
A portrait of the contentious, controversial history of the Manhattan elite's favorite fabled summer playground
In this absorbing account of New York's famous vacation playground, Corey Dolgon goes beyond the celebrity tales and polo games to tell us the story of this complex and contentious land. From the displacement of Native Americans by the Puritans to the first wave of Manhattan elites who built the Summer Colony, to the current infusion of telecommuting Manhattanites who now want to live there year-round, the story of the Hamptons is a vicious cycle of supposed paradise lost.
Drawing on this fabled land's history, The End of the Hamptons provides a fascinating portrait of current controversies: the Native Americans fighting over land claims and threatening to build a casino, the environmental activists clashing with the McMansion builders, and the Latino day laborers and working-class natives trying to eke out a living in an ever-increasingly expensive town.
Reviews / Votes
"Delicious and intellectually nutritious as a Montauk seafood fiesta. Sharp and as jolting as the jitney journey from Manhattan, it is perfect beach reading, or enticing fodder for the downtime of long winters." - Neil Smith,author of American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization "Takes us beyond the much-romanticized beaches of Long Island to the rich entrepreneurs and their McMansions, the Latino workers, and the stubborn indigenous residents refusing to disappear. The book is important because it is in so many ways a microcosm of the nation." - Howard Zinn,author of A People's History of the United States "This superb book focuses on current controversies in the Hamptons. . . . Dolgons treatment of these issues is carefully researched, richly detailed, and original, and presented in a beautifully clear narrative." - David Halle (Contemporary Sociology) "Dolgon tells a history that is balanced and agenda-free" (Foreword Magazine) "[A] very good book. It offers the reader an insightful political-economic analysis of eastern Long Island's microcosm of a class and ethnically divided society. . . . This is a fascinating book for scholars interested in how all these factors play out in a fabled locality." (Antipode, Susan S. Fainstein,Columbia University)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
399 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8147-1997-8 (9780814719978)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2005
New York University Press
€142.99
Available for download
E-Book
05/2005
New York University Press
€30.99
Available for download
Person
Corey Dolgon is associate professor of sociology at Worcester State College and the editor of Humanity and Society, the Journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology.
Content
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Spending Time in the Hamptons 1 Waves upon the Shore: Coming to the Hamptons from the Earliest Times to the 1970s 2 Houses in the Fields: New York City Moves East 3 Peconic County Now! Whose Quality of Life Is It Anyway? 4 Polo Ponies and Penalty Kicks: Sports on the East End 5 The Other Hamptons: Race and Class in America's Paradise 6 From Clam Beds to Casinos: The Enduring Battle over Native American Land Rights Epilogue NotesBibliography Index About the Author