Folk City is here!

April 30th, 2015
Oxford University Press, June 2015
Google Preview / Google Play / Amazon / B & N
The book, from Oxford University Press, accompanies an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York (through January 10, 2016).
Don’t miss it!!
Jon Pareles, the Times music critic, loves the exhibition: “Captures the ambition, the ferment and the (sometimes contentious) sense of community that made a few blocks of Greenwich Village into a cultural bellwether in the 1950s and early 1960s.” [url]

Everybody Loves the Book
A “handsome book, which includes rarely seen photographs, reminiscences of participants and a lively narrative. … The authors do a fine job of presenting the various facets of the folk revival, including its impact on the city and its role in changing the larger culture.” —Ronald Radosh, The New York Times Book Review 

Folk City is a magical token back to a clattering, incandescent New York, where Popular Front hootenannies gave way to the fretted hip of Gerde’s, the Gaslight, and the Folklore Center. Stephen Petrus and Ronald Cohen have written the best history yet of the city’s influential folk music culture, packed with astonishing photos that finally see the light of day.” —Sean Wilentz, author of Bob Dylan in America

“Yes, dear readers, there was a time not so long ago when urban troubadours sang of flowers more powerful than guns; a time when ideals put to song helped transform a culture. With compelling artistry, Stephen Petrus and Ronald Cohen capture the history behind that special moment and how New York’s diverse creative class made it happen.” —Thomas Kessner, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York Graduate School

Folk City is beautifully written and illustrated, a mesmerizing history of one of the great moments in New York cultural history. The prose fairly sings off the page, and the photos and old poster and song sheets are fascinating. This will make you wish you were there.” —Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd


“Fourteen years ago, author David Hajdu crafted a superb, perhaps definitive, portrait of Greenwich Village at the height of the folk-music revival . . . yet [Folk City], in its winningly plain-spoken way, provides a far more comprehensive appreciation of one of the most colourful chapters in American music.” Maclean’s


“[A] fresh, colorful, thoroughly illustrated portrait of the scene, from its origins to today . . . [Folk City] is particularly compelling in chronicling, from original documents and firsthand testimony, how the critical mass for the folk revival congregated in the city.” The Wall Street Journal
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