"Edward Rutherford celebrates America's greatest city in a saga that showcases his ability to combine impeccable historical research and storytelling flair. From the empty grandeur of the New World to the skyscrapers of the City That Never Sleeps, from the intimate detail of lives long forgotten to those lived today at breakneck speed - four centuries brought to life in a rich and vibrant fictional tapestry." "The novel begins with a tiny Indian fishing village on the forested island of Manna hata, as Dutch traders arrive from across the ocean, seeking to carve out their fortunes amid the splendor of the wilderness. In a global war for imperial dominance, British settlers and merchants arrived as conquerors, bringing aristocratic governors and then unpopular taxation, which led to rebellion, war, and the birth of the United States. From the very beginning New York has been central to the great events of American history." "Rutherford tells this story through the interwoven tales of families rich and poor, black and white, native-born and immigrant - a cast of fictional and true characters whose fates rise and fall, fall and rise with the city's fortunes. From this intimate perspective we see the Revolutionary War, the emergence of the city as a great trading and financial center, the convulsions of the Civil War, the excesses of the Gilded Age, the explosion of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the trials of World War II, the near demise of New York in the 1970s and its roaring rebirth in the 1990s, and the attacks on the World Trade Center." Here is the story of how in four centuries New York became the envy of the world, the Big Apple, sometimesloved and sometimes hated, until those who envied it most sought - vainly - to destroy it. A mix of battle, romance, family struggles, and personal triumphs, New York: The Novel captures the search for freedom and opportunity at the heart of our nation's history.