Racial strife, increased social and economic discrimination, amplified political friction, and growing uncertainty around the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have laid bare many inequalities within the city of Boston. How will these disruptions and inequities influence the city’s future, especially as Boston celebrates its quadricentennial in 2030?

This collection of original essays addresses the many challenges Boston contends with in the twenty-first century and considers ways to improve the city for everyone. Presenting a range of perspectives written by area experts—academics, reflective practitioners, and policymakers—these essays tackle issues of resiliency, mobility, affordable housing, health outcomes, social equity, economic equality, zoning, regionalism, and more. Reflecting the diversity of the city and the challenges and opportunities Boston currently faces, Idea City will help readers think differently about their own areas of expertise and draw conclusions from urban regeneration work in other fields.

Widely known as the “poor man’s lawyer” in antebellum Boston, John Albion Andrew (1818–1867) was involved in nearly every cause and case that advanced social and racial justice in Boston in the years preceding the Civil War. Inspired by the legacies of John Quincy Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and mentored by Charles Sumner, Andrew devoted himself to the battle for equality. By day, he fought to protect those condemned to the death penalty, women seeking divorce, and fugitives ensnared by the Fugitive Slave Law. By night, he coordinated logistics and funding for the Underground Railroad as it ferried enslaved African Americans northward.

In this revealing and accessible biography, Stephen D. Engle traces Andrew’s life and legacy, giving this important, but largely forgotten, figure his due. Rising to national prominence during the Civil War years as the governor of Massachusetts, Andrew raised the African American regiment known as the Glorious 54th and rallied thousands of soldiers to the Union cause. Upon his sudden death in 1867, a correspondent for Harper’s Weekly wrote, “Not since the news came of Abraham Lincoln’s death were so many hearts truly smitten.”

The First Complete Account of the Largest Supernatural Crisis in American history, and How Ordinary Citizens Brought It to a Close
By July 1692, the witch hunt surrounding the town of Salem and Salem Village had been raging for four months. The Massachusetts Bay colony’s new governor, William Phips, had established a special court to try the suspected witches and the trials were well under way. No new arrests had taken place for nearly six weeks and residents had every reason to believe the crisis soon would be over. However, a middle-aged woman in nearby Andover lay gravely ill. Her husband suspected witchcraft as the cause and invited some of the afflicted girls from Salem Village to the town, thinking they could determine whether his suspicions were valid. Not surprisingly, they confirmed his supposition. The first person these girls accused in Andover—a frail and elderly widow bereaved by a series of family tragedies over the pre­vious three years—not only confessed, but stated that there were more than three hundred witches in the region, five times more than the number of suspects already in jail. This touched off a new wave of accusations, confessions, and formal charges. Before the witchcraft crisis ended, forty-five residents of Andover found themselves jailed on suspicion of witchcraft—more than the combined total of suspects from Salem Village and the town of Salem. Of these, three were hanged and one died while awaiting execution.
Based on extensive primary source research, In the Shadow of Salem: The Andover Witch Hunt of 1692, by historian and archivist Richard Hite, tells for the first time the fascinating story of this long overlooked phase of the largest witch hunt in American history. Untangling a net of rivalries and ties between families and neighbors, the author explains the actions of the accusers, the reactions of the accused, and their ultimate fates. In the process, he shows how the Andover arrests prompted a large segment of the town’s population to openly oppose the entire witch hunt and how their actions played a crucial role in finally bringing the 1692 witchcraft crisis to a close. 

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less than a year, including more than 500,000 in the United States. What made this pandemic even more frightening was the fact that it occurred when death rates for most common infectious diseases were diminishing. Still, an epidemic is not merely a medical crisis; it has sociological, psychological, and political dimensions as well. In Influenza and Inequality, Patricia J. Fanning examines these other dimensions and brings to life this terrible episode of epidemic disease by tracing its path through the town of Norwood, Massachusetts.

By 1918, Norwood was a small, ethnically diverse, industrialized, and stratified community. Ink, printing, and tanning factories were owned by wealthy families who lived privileged lives. These industries attracted immigrant laborers who made their homes in several ethnic neighborhoods and endured prejudice and discrimination at the hands of native residents. When the epidemic struck, the immigrant neighborhoods were most affected; a fact that played a significant role in the town's response—with tragic results.

This close analysis of one town's struggle illuminates how even well-intentioned elite groups may adopt and implement strategies that can exacerbate rather than relieve a medical crisis. It is a cautionary tale that demonstrates how social behavior can be a fundamental predictor of the epidemic curve, a community's response to crisis, and the consequences of those actions.

Presented here for the first time is the history of Boston's evolution as a center of American money management from early settlement to the twenty-first century. Within a few decades after the Revolution, Bostonians built up an impressive mercantile and industrial economy, and used wealth accrued from the China trade, New England mills, and other ventures to establish the most important stock exchange in America. They also created the "Boston trustee," a unique professional who managed private fortunes over generations. During the late nineteenth century, Boston financial institutions were renowned as bastions of stability and conservatism in an era of recurrent economic panics and frequent failures.

It was not until the twentieth century that Boston became better known for its role in investment management. In 1924, local financiers created the first mutual fund, an innovation almost a century in the making. After World War II, Boston originated venture capital with the founding of American Research & Development. This was soon followed by the development of private equity, the growth of the mutual fund industry, the pension "revolution" that changed and strengthened money management, the evolution in management of institutional endowments, and the rise of new family offices and hedge funds. The contributions of fiduciaries and investment managers have played an important part in the rise of the "New Boston" and made the city one of the most vibrant financial capitals in the world.

Investment Management in Boston is published in association with Massachusetts Historical Society.

The Invisible World portrays how a remarkable family is indelibly marred by one of the darkest conspiracy theories in American history: the gunman on the grassy knoll. Boston journalist Sam Adams suspects that his father may have been the unidentified gunman in the JFK assassination. True or not, Sam is certain that his father, the elusive John Adams, is responsible for his sister Abigail’s tortured life of drugs, prostitution, and the conviction that she is a descendant of Salem witches, as well as the strange circumstances that surround his mother’s final hours.
 
After Sam's mother dies and is cremated, her ashes are stolen. Believing that his father is responsible, Sam pursues the man he has not seen in years. He discovers that he is not the only one searching for his father—federal agents, a disgraced politician, a retired Boston cop, and several journalists join the chase.
 
“The Invisible World is more than a first-rate political thriller,” says The Boston Globe. “It’s an absorbing tale of alienation and loss, and the ramifications of a rootless, troubled family.” What Sam Adams ultimately discovers is that the shadowy realm of conspiracies conjures a world of hidden truths and intrigue in which the familiar is the most mysterious force of all.