| Author | : Richard Zacks |
| File Size | : 44,6 Mb |
| Publisher | : Anchor |
| Language | : English |
| Release Date | : 04 September 2012 |
| ISBN | : 9780767926195 |
| Pages | : 465 pages |
Island of Vice by Richard Zacks Book PDF Summary
In the 1890s, young cocksure Theodore Roosevelt, years before the White House, was appointed police commissioner of corrupt, pleasure-loving New York, then teeming with 40,000 prostitutes, illegal casinos and all-night dance halls. The Harvard-educated Roosevelt, with a reformer’s zeal, tried to wipe out the city’s vice and corruption. He went head-to-head with Tammany Hall, took midnight rambles looking for derelict cops, banned barroom drinking on Sundays and tried to convince 2 million New Yorkers to enjoy wholesome family fun. The city rebelled big time; cartoonists lampooned him on the front page; his own political party abandoned him but Roosevelt never backed down. Island of Vice delivers a rollicking narrative history of Roosevelt’s embattled tenure, pitting the seedy against the saintly, and the city against its would-be savior.