In a book spanning more than three centuries, Boyd (whom our reviewer called Detroit’s “griot”) tells the city’s history from French trading outpost to auto manufacturing hub to a symbol for urban decline, but he places black people at the center of it all. Boyd guides us through a number of social movements that flourished in Detroit — abolitionism, union organizing and civil rights, for instance. He introduces a wide range of characters, including enslaved Africans, the founders of the city’s first black newspaper, the first black congressman, and many more. His book culminates in his account of the black power era in the 1960s, of which Detroit was a prominent home. Despite Detroit’s current state of crisis, black Detroiters “have been steadfast in their resolve and optimistic about the future,” wrote Boyd.

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DETROIT RESURRECTED

To Bankruptcy and Back

By Nathan Bomey

297 pp. W.W. Norton & Company. (2016)

According to our reviewer, this book is “the most thoroughly reported account of the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.” Bomey, who reported for The Detroit Free Press during the bankruptcy, writes about why the city went broke, chalking it up to fiscal mismanagement and a reliance on Wall Street to foot the bill; he also details the particulars of the debt negotiations and how they gave the city hope for resurrection. There was disagreement over whether certain city-owned assets, such as valuable works from the Detroit Institute of Arts, should be liquidated, and what to do about the billions owed to retired city workers in pensions and health care benefits. But the deal worked out favorably, and for once, wrote our reviewer, Detroit “seemed to catch all the breaks.”