First published 2015
David Maraniss reconstructs Detroit at its zenith in 1963, when the city embodied American prosperity and innovation. He focuses on the visionary leaders who shaped this moment: Henry Ford II, grandson of the automotive pioneer; labor organizer Walter Reuther whose UAW lifted the middle class; Berry Gordy building the Motown empire; Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter Aretha transforming music; Governor George Romney championing civil rights; car salesman Lee Iacocca; Mayor Jerome Cavanagh following Kennedy's vision; and Martin Luther King, who first delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in Detroit two months before Washington. Maraniss captures the convergence of automotive dominance, musical revolution, and progressive politics that made Detroit the symbol of American achievement. Yet he also reveals how the seeds of future collapse were already visible beneath the surface prosperity, before the riots, corruption, white flight, and economic decline that would follow. The book demonstrates how a city at its peak contained the contradictions that would lead to its downfall.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: historical, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: convergence-of-events, historical-fiction
Setting: Detroit, Michigan
Period: 1963
464 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster, Inc.