First published in 1988 by the New Hampshire Historical Society, and long since sought after, On the Road North of Boston is back in print. This richly illustrated, entertaining book is an invaluable resource for New Hampshire residents and students of the state's history alike. Nine extensively researched and meticulously prepared chapters depict historic taverns and tavern society of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New England. Donna-Belle and James Garvin vividly reconstruct the physical landscape: the taverns themselves, the network of roads, travel conditions, traffic and commerce. They immerse the reader in the contemporary tavern atmosphere: encounters with fellow travelers, food, drink, entertainment, and hospitality in its earliest incarnations "on the road north of Boston." On the Road North of Boston contains rare and wonderful black-and-white illustrations of authentic tavern signs and furnishings, broadsides advertising tavern entertainments, early photographs and drawings of tavern buildings, road signs, vehicles, and bridges, portraits of tavern keepers, stage drivers, and itinerant performers. This book offers modern New England residents and travelers rich chronicles and visions of an age long past.
A VIVID AND FASCINATING LOOK AT AMERICAN HISTORY THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE COUNTRY’S MOST STORIED HIGHWAY, THE BOSTON POST ROAD During its evolution from Indian trails to modern interstates, the Boston Post Road, a system of over-land routes between New York City and Boston, has carried not just travelers and mail but the march of American history itself. Eric Jaffe captures the progress of people and culture along the road through four centuries, from its earliest days as the king of England’s “best highway” to the current era. Centuries before the telephone, radio, or Internet, the Boston Post Road was the primary conduit of America’s prosperity and growth. News, rumor, political intrigue, financial transactions, and personal missives traveled with increasing rapidity, as did people from every walk of life. From post riders bearing the alarms of revolution, to coaches carrying George Washington on his first presidential tour, to railroads transporting soldiers to the Civil War, the Boston Post Road has been essential to the political, economic, and social development of the United States. Continuously raised, improved, rerouted, and widened for faster and heavier traffic, the road played a key role in the advent of newspapers, stagecoach travel, textiles, mass-produced bicycles and guns, commuter railroads, automobiles—even Manhattan’s modern grid. Many famous Americans traveled the highway, and it drew the keen attention of such diverse personages as Benjamin Franklin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, P. T. Barnum, J. P. Morgan, and Robert Moses. Eric Jaffe weaves this entertaining narrative with a historian’s eye for detail and a journalist’s flair for storytelling. A cast of historical figures, celebrated and unknown alike, tells the lost tale of this road. Revolutionary printer William Goddard created a postal network that united the colonies against the throne. General Washington struggled to hold the highway during the battle for Manhattan. Levi Pease convinced Americans to travel by stagecoach until, half a century later, Nathan Hale convinced them to go by train. Abe Lincoln, still a dark-horse candidate in early 1860, embarked on a railroad speaking tour along the route that clinched the presidency. Bomb builder Lester Barlow, inspired by the Post Road’s notorious traffic, nearly sold Congress on a national system of expressways twenty-five years before the Interstate Highway Act of 1956. Based on extensive travels of the highway, interviews with people living up and down the road, and primary sources unearthed from the great libraries between New York City and Boston—including letters, maps, contemporaneous newspapers, and long-forgotten government documents—The King’s Best Highway is a delightful read for American history buffs and lovers of narrative everywhere.
"Herein, we bring you to sites that have been central to the lives of 'the people' of Greater Boston over four centuries. You'll visit sites associated with the area's indigenous inhabitants and with the individuals and movements who sought to abolish slavery, to end war, challenge militarism, and bring about a more peaceful world, to achieve racial equity, gender justice, and sexual liberation, and to secure the rights of workers. We take you to some well-known sites, but more often to ones far off the well-beaten path of the Freedom Trail, to places in Boston's outlying neighborhoods. We also visit sites in numerous other municipalities that make up the Greater Boston region-from places such as Lawrence, Lowell and Lynn to Concord and Plymouth. The sites to which we do 'travel' include homes given that people's struggles, activism, and organizing sometimes unfold, or are even birthed in many cases in living rooms and kitchens. Trying to capture a place as diverse and dynamic as Boston is highly challenging. (One could say that about any 'big' place.) We thus want to make clear that our goal is not to be comprehensive, or to 'do justice' to the region. Given the constraints of space and time as well as the limitations of knowledge--both our own and what is available in published form--there are many important sites, cities, and towns that we have not included. Thus, in exploring scores of sites across Boston and numerous municipalities, our modest goal is to paint a suggestive portrait of the greater urban area that highlights its long-contested nature. In many ways, we merely scratch the region's surface--or many surfaces--given the multiple layers that any one place embodies. In writing about Greater Boston as a place, we run the risk of suggesting that the city writ-large has some sort of essence. Indeed, the very notion of a particular place assumes intrinsic characteristics and an associated delimited space. After all, how can one distinguish one place from another if it has no uniqueness and is not geographically differentiated? Nonetheless, geographer Doreen Massey insists that we conceive of places as progressive, as flowing over the boundaries of any particular space, time, or society; in other words, we should see places as processual or ever-changing, as unbounded in that they shape and are shaped by other places and forces from without, and as having multiple identities. In exploring Greater Boston from many venues over 400 years, we embrace this approach. That said, we have to reconcile this with the need to delimit Greater Boston--for among other reasons, simply to be in a position to name it and thus distinguish it from elsewhere"--
The Metro Boston/ Eastern Massachusetts Street Atlas boasts individual maps for over 160 communities. This atlas contains: A large-scale map of Central Boston, an Eastern Massachusetts road map, several public transportation maps. Each map contains an index, and indicates shopping centers, community statistics and places of interest. This atlas contains a comprehensive localities index, and offers more coverage than any other atlas in this area.
A Tribe Called Quest • Beastie Boys • De La Soul • Eric B. & Rakim • The Fugees • KRS-One • Pete Rock & CL Smooth • Public Enemy • The Roots • Run-DMC • Wu-Tang Clan • and twenty-five more hip-hop immortals It’s a sad fact: hip-hop album liners have always been reduced to a list of producer and sample credits, a publicity photo or two, and some hastily composed shout-outs. That’s a damn shame, because few outside the game know about the true creative forces behind influential masterpieces like PE’s It Takes a Nation of Millions. . ., De La’s 3 Feet High and Rising, and Wu-Tang’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). A longtime scribe for the hip-hop nation, Brian Coleman fills this void, and delivers a thrilling, knockout oral history of the albums that define this dynamic and iconoclastic art form. The format: One chapter, one artist, one album, blow-by-blow and track-by-track, delivered straight from the original sources. Performers, producers, DJs, and b-boys–including Big Daddy Kane, Muggs and B-Real, Biz Markie, RZA, Ice-T, and Wyclef–step to the mic to talk about the influences, environment, equipment, samples, beats, beefs, and surprises that went into making each classic record. Studio craft and street smarts, sonic inspiration and skate ramps, triumph, tragedy, and take-out food–all played their part in creating these essential albums of the hip-hop canon. Insightful, raucous, and addictive, Check the Technique transports you back to hip-hop’s golden age with the greatest artists of the ’80s and ’90s. This is the book that belongs on the stacks next to your wax. “Brian Coleman’s writing is a lot like the albums he covers: direct, uproarious, and more than six-fifths genius.” –Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop “All producers and hip-hop fans must read this book. It really shows how these albums were made and touches the music fiend in everyone.” –DJ Evil Dee of Black Moon and Da Beatminerz “A rarity in mainstream publishing: a truly essential rap history.” –Ronin Ro, author of Have Gun Will Travel
Hit the Road with Moon Travel Guides! Discover an America brimming with culture and history, both old and new! Moon New England Road Trip can do everything but change the radio station. Inside you'll find: Maps and Driving Tools: 70 easy-to-use maps keep you oriented on and off the highway, along with site-to-site mileage, driving times, and detailed directions for the entire route Eat, Sleep, Stop and Explore: You'll know exactly what you want to do at each stop with lists of the best hikes, views, and more. Sample farm-fresh cuisine in the Berkshires, or hit up the famous Tanglewood music festival in the summer. Dive into Boston's revolutionary history, or cruise down bucolic lanes of Woodstock. Take to the sea off the coast of Maine to spot humpback whales and puffin colonies, or lounge on the beach and snag a buttery lobster roll Itineraries for Every Traveler: Drive the entire two-week route or follow strategic routes like "A Tour of the Fall Foliage," as well as suggestions for spending time in Boston, New York City, Coastal Maine, The Berkshires, Southern Vermont, New Hampshire's White Mountains, Newport, Cape Cod, and Acadia National Park Local Expert: Local New Englander and road warrior Jen Rose Smith shares the highway secrets of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island Planning Your Trip: Know when and where to get gas, how to avoid traffic, tips for driving in different road and weather conditions, and suggestions for LGBTQ travelers, seniors, and road trippers with kids With Moon New England Road Trip's practical tips, detailed itineraries, and insider's view, you're ready to fill up the tank and hit the road. Looking to explore more of America on wheels? Try Moon Blue Ridge Parkway Road Trip! Doing more than driving through? Check out Moon Boston, Moon Vermont, or Moon New York State.
