Content area
Full Text
City of Big Shoulders: A History of Chicago by Robert G. Spinney (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv, 300 pp., Illustrations. Cloth, $40.00; Paper, $18.50 )
The old saying that "What America needs is a good five-cent cigar" has a local variation: What Chicago needs is a good onevolume history. Robert Spinney's Broad Shoulders is the first effort to fill that need in decades. This offering has several pluses. It is clearly written and avoids dwelling on many of the stories that have been told too often. It has a nice chronological balance of material that gives equal-length treatments to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are some good illustrations as well, including the cover photo's play on words.
But, as much as I wanted to like this book, its serious flaws unfortunately outweigh its virtues. After reciting almost worshipful praise for the numerous academic historians who have turned out myriad books and articles based on laborious work in primary sources, Spinney proceeds to exploit them with only token references in very shockingly inadequate footnotes. At...