The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War

This is a fine, insightful study of the New York "Draft" Riots, which were about far more than military conscription. It does have some problems of organization and repetition, as others note. Overly harsh critics probably assume that this is a conventional, event-oriented tale of the riots themselves, but Bernstein's forte is analysis rather than narrative. He explains their context, causes and importance for understanding urban tensions in an era of intense stuggles over freedom, industrialization, work, wages, immigration, assimilation and exclusion. He tells the story well enough (though a coherent chronology is hard to locate), focusing on what it reveals about a period of fundamental change in US history. See also T. Anbinder, "Five Points;" N. Ignatiev, "How the Irish Became White;" and the hoary tome by H. Asbury, "Gangs of New York."