New York City: A Social History (A Free Online Course from N.Y.U.)

Taught by Daniel Walkowitz, this N.Y.U. course, enti­tled New York City: A Social His­to­ry, cov­ers the fol­low­ing ground:

New York City, grow­ing from the small Dutch com­mer­cial set­tle­ment of New Ams­ter­dam ear­ly in the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry into a bustling mul­ti-cul­tur­al city of more than 7 mil­lion and metrop­o­lis of more than 15 mil­lion by the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, is a place with many sto­ries. A semes­ter of 14 weeks can only touch on some of them. This course will focus on the social his­to­ry of the city – the peo­ples who have built the city and com­pet­ing efforts by dif­fer­ent num­bers to autho­rize their dreams for the city. As arguably the cap­i­tal for glob­al cap­i­tal­ism today, one focus of this course will seek to plot its devel­op­ment and lega­cy for the shap­ing of the city. A more par­tic­u­lar and relat­ed local sto­ry will be stud­ied as well, how­ev­er: the polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al inter­ests, ide­olo­gies and play­ers who shape and reshape the city as Man­hat­tan, as New York and as the Metrop­o­lis.

You can watch the 26 lec­tures above, or find them on YouTube and iTunes. New York City: A Social His­to­ry will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online His­to­ry cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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