The 'greatest historian' of NYC finishes epic trilogy with 'Gotham at War'

The pages of “Gotham at War” recount a history that feels disturbingly relevant.

Tensions rise in the city over race, religion, class, immigration and political legitimacy. Author Mike Wallace traces cultural resistance via comic books and music, the pluralist coalitions of labor and religious groups, and the shifting allegiances of the city’s elites.

That atmosphere, he argues, prefigures the coming of World War II. Wallace tells the colorful stories of real New Yorkers, such as at an anti-Nazi protest in 1933, where members of the Undertakers’ Union carried signs that read "WE WANT HITLER." German U-Boats pick off American ships in the Port of New York. There’s the East Harlem-born circus acrobat and singing waiter who finally landed an acting gig in the U.S. Army’s traveling entertain