Overview

Boston is today one of the world’s greatest cities, first in higher education, hospitals, life science companies, and sports teams. It was the home of the Great Puritan Migration, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the first civil rights movement, the abolition movement, and the women’s rights movement. But the city that gave us the first use of ether as anesthesia, the telephone, technicolor film, and the mutual fund—the city where Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott founded their world-changing partnership—was also the hub of the anti-immigration movement, the divisive busing era, and decades of self-inflicted decay. Boston has the most important history of any American city. Yet its history has never been given a comprehensive treatment until now. Join Dan Dain as he acts as your tour guide from the arrival of First Peoples up to the election of Boston’s first woman and person of color as mayor. Dain’s masterful work explores the policies and practices that took Boston from its highest heights to its lowest lows and back again, and examines the central role that density, diversity, and good urban design play in the success of cities like Boston.

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9781942155614

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Reviews

"""A guide to Boston across more than four centuries, from before its founding in 1630 through watershed periods of success and decline, including everything from politics, economics, immigration and race relations to sports, movies, music and restaurants."" --Needham Observer ""Chock-full of interesting anecdotes and fascinating insights on the history of Boston.""--Active Travels ""Dain lays out a blueprint for the city's future...A History of Boston is a must-read for developers, planners, municipal leaders, students or anyone else interested in how vibrant and sustainable cities come to be...Learning from our past and leaning into our strengths are the ways forward. Dain now gives us a model to use.""--Banker and Tradesman ""Magnificent and masterful...Looks at all nearly 400 years of the city's history.""--Contrarian Boston"

Author Information

Dan Dain was born in Boston and grew up in Newton before leaving the area to attend Vassar College and Michigan Law School. Since then, he has spent his entire professional career as a lawyer in Boston, working with commercial property owners and developers on issues related to their use and development of real estate. Dan is the founder and president of the law firm Dain Torpy, where he chairs the firm’s real estate litigation practice. He writes and lectures widely on land-use law and urban planning. Dan is active in the community. He is the manager of a private equity fund that invests in independent local restaurants, chairs the arts company White Snake Projects, chairs the Town of Needham’s Golf Club Advisory Committee, chairs the Massachusetts Real Estate Bar Association’s Litigation Section, is on the board of the Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture, is a co-founder and treasurer of the Needham Land Trust, and is on the board of business advocacy groups NAIOP of Massachusetts and A Better City. The legal-rating publication Super Lawyers has recognized Dan as one of the top 100 lawyers in Massachusetts every year since 2013. Dan is an avid hiker and has climbed mountains around the world. He is a fanatic follower of Boston and University of Michigan sports teams. He loves giving tours of Boston to friends and visitors, and he’s known for his ability to give restaurant recommendations for any cuisine or location around Greater Boston. He lives in Needham with his wife and two kids. Peter Vanderwarker is a photographer and artist. His photographs are in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Addison Gallery of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Recent exhibitions include The Language of Landscape at Gallery NAGA, 2023; Seaport Views at the US District Courthouse in 2016; and Vanderwarker’s Pantheon, at the Boston Athenaeum in 2009. Vanderwarker’s work received Institute Honors from the American Institute of Architects in 1991. Peter has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from University of California, Berkeley, and he was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University in 1997. His work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Graham Foundation.

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