ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Nashville is a city of sublime contrasts, an intellectual hub built on a devotion to God, country music, and the Devil’s pleasures. Refined and raucous, it has long represented both culture and downright fun, capable of embracing pre–Civil War mansions and manners, as well as honky-tonk bars and trailer parks. Nouvelle cuisine coexists with barbeque and cornbread; the Frist Museum of Contemporary Art is near the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Nashville has, in less than eighty years, transformed from a small, conservative, Bible-thumping city into a booming metropolis. Nashvillian Richard Schweid tells the history of how it all came to pass and colorfully describes contemporary Nashville and the changes and upheavals it has gone through to make it the South’s most exciting and thriving city.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Journalist and author Richard Schweid worked for ten years as a reporter for the Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper. His previous books include Invisible Nation: Homeless Families in America as well as Eel and Octopus, also published by Reaktion Books, and The Cockroach Papers, published by the University of Chicago Press.
REVIEWS
“Authentic and insightful, Schweid’s new book chronicles how Nashville became America’s ‘It City,’ a hub of entertainment and culture—a place advocates of the New South never foresaw. A must-read for natives and visitors alike.”
— Frank Sutherland, former editor-in-chief of "The Tennessean"
"Schweid's entertaining and informative, with the kind of style that might be described as conversational, but that’s too facile. Conversations are rarely as agreeably structured as his prose. He’s also well-suited for this particular topic. A Nashville native and Hillsboro High graduate who now lives in Barcelona and Rhode Island, he brings to the table his own experience during some of Nashville’s turning-point years. . . . All that transformation is not without its tensions, he notes. '[S]ome Nashvillians worry that their city’s relaxed charm is imperiled by so much growth and development,' he writes. 'It is this struggle that defines the city today.' Ain’t that the truth."
— Nashville Ledger
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Prologue: A City in Transition
HISTORY
1. Seven Hills and a River
2. A Town Appears
3. A War Zone
4. Reconstruction and Recovery
5. The City Spreads Out
6. A Change Is Gonna Come
7. A New Nashville
THE CITY TODAY
Music City, USA
Natural Nashville
At the Table
The Real Estate Boom
Literary and Artistic Nashville
Nighttime’s the Right Time
LISTINGS
Chronology
Suggested Reading and Viewing
Acknowledgments
Photo Acknowledgments
Index
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