Chicago: A Biography

Local historian Dominic Pacyga has a new book out, Chicago: A Biography, from University of Chicago Press. Pacyga is interviewed in the video clip above by Phil Ponce on Chicago Tonight. I greatly enjoyed his Chicago: City of Neighborhoods which I read several years ago, and am looking forward to this one. And check out the gallery of photographs from the book - I especially like this one, of the "Burnt District Coffee House", one of the many fledgling businesses to arise in the ashes - literally - of the Chicago Fire. Nothing represents the city's relentless commercial ambitions quite like some chap who opens a coffee house amidst all of that rubble and devastation.