Books like Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City 1946-1996

Much of this book was extremely interesting to me as a long-time metropolitan Atlanta resident. It was fascinating to learn how the buildings and skyline came to be, how the superior airport (which basically made Atlanta the city it is today) was almost solely due to an Atlanta mayor with extreme foresight, how race relations developed differently in Atlanta than most other southern US cities, about the few, powerful financial giants and how much they had much to do with development, and the history of many people whose names I know because there are buildings or streets named after them. I already knew some of the city’s history but only the parts I lived through and was old enough to care about. This book did a good job portraying the whole picture of the time period covered chronologically. I was surprised that the Save the Fox campaign was not included. But, overall, I appreciated the topics included. I loved learning more about the history of the city where I’ve lived for almost 40 years. However, it was a history book, after all, and I’m not a history buff. So, it was sometimes painstaking for me to read through and took me a while to complete. It put me to sleep a few times. A good bit was about political backstabbing and underhandedness which turned me off and dirtied my opinion of some things. If you enjoy history and are interested in the city of Atlanta, I recommend it. It met my expectations of teaching me Atlanta history. The ending was rather abrupt, but I suppose that is typical with history books.