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I picked this book up on a summer Kindle sale, after originally being intrigued by the author's London title, which was not available for Kindle when I was looking at it. I really enjoyed this book and the variety of topics and the wide swath of history that it covered, with the common characters and family threads tying together each time period. The history of New York City is covered from the first settlers and merchants in Dutch New Amsterdam through to the September 11 attacks on the twin towers, with plenty of touchstones of well-known events (including the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire) and political/social trends along the way. One family is represented throughout the entire novel, and multiple other families show up from time to time as they interact with the scions of the main character tree. This family provided an excellent continuity for the entire novel, and it was fascinating to see how the family's fortunes and social influence changed over time. Slavery is touched upon throughout the first third/half of the book, with kindness as well as honesty, and the stories told of those characters certainly have the ring of truth to them. I found some of the social commentary to be the most interesting, as I do have familiarity with many of the events and politics covered, so the social discussions especially covering the early 1900s were new territory for me. I really recommend this book if you have any interest in the city of New York, or if you like novels that cover long time periods yet still manage to produce a cohesive tale. I'm looking forward to picking up additional titles by this author in the future.