Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America

The New York Times Book Review
- Beverly Gage
The men and women who populated and recreated Midtown during these years are the chief subjects of Supreme City, Miller's entertaining new history of Manhattan in its modern heyday…less a critical analysis of urban life than a celebration of a legendary decade. This is New York history told through the lives of its richest, most famous and most flamboyant citizens…accessible, romantic, sweeping and celebratory…Supreme City…is the work of an enthusiast, and Miller's enthusiasm is catching. One can't help marveling at the enormous cast of characters gathered in the same few blocks at the same historical moment: the aviator Charles Lindbergh and the publisher Alfred Knopf, the slugger Babe Ruth and the pug Jack Dempsey, the radio pioneer David Sarnoff and the Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld.