Nancy Unger

The Gilded Age Construction of Modern American Homophobia: Hatheway, Jay: New York: Palmgrave Macmillan 232 pp., Publication Date: August 2003

and consolidate an urban middle-class whose self-identification was both local and national. Finally, bourgeois urbanists supported innovative state building on the municipal level, an important precursor to similar trends on the fcderal level. Scobey’s study is a significant contribution to literature in several fields, including American studies, urban and planning history, architecture, and landscape design. His skillful interweaving of the book’s two different foci (city building and city planning) creates an impassioned and largely seamless narrative. In this respect, i t is similar to Carl Smith‘s highly praised work on nineteenthcentury Chicago. Perhaps most useful is Scobey’s willingness to employ the lens of political economy to dissect the process of urbanization. To be sure, his integration of concepts and insights proffered by Marxist scholars is a technique that more urban historians should consider emulating. Scobey’s book most likely will appeal to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates studying urban history. Individuals interested in the history of New York City also will find Scobey’s scholarship quite enlightening.