Books by David Quigley

The true story of a remarkable woman, Addis Amicarella, who was born in the small commune of Acciano high above the Aterno River valley just before the outbreak of the Second World War. As one in a family of six, life was hard; you had to be tough to survive.At the age of only fifteen and speaking no English, she left to travel to Ireland in a bid to make a better life for her family. Finding work as a general dogsbody in a hotel there, she was soon able to send money home to Italy.But Addis was a keen learner and was always determined to move her life forward. From Italy to Ireland, from London to Yorkshire with a few stops on the way, this kind, pragmatic, decisive woman proves that there is life 'Beyond the Aterno...'

At the close of the Civil War, Americans found themselves drawn into a new conflict, one in which the basic shape of the nation's government had to be rethought and new rules for the democratic game had to be established. In this superb new study, David Quigley argues that New York City's politics and politicians lay at the heart of Reconstruction's intense, conflicted drama. In ways that we understand all too well today, New York history became national history.The establishment of a postwar interracial democracy required the tearing down and rebuilding of many basic tenets of American government, yet, as Quigley shows in dramatic detail, the white supremacist traditions of the nation's leading city militated against a genuine revision of America's racial order, for New York politicians placed limits on the possibilities of true Reconstruction at every turn. Still, change did occur and a new America did take shape. Ironically, it was in New York City that new languages and practices for public life were developing which left an indelible mark on progressive national politics. Quigley's signal accomplishment is to show that the innovative work of New York's black activists, Tammany Democrats, bourgeois reformers, suffragettes, liberal publicists, and trade unionists resulted in a radical redefinition of reform in urban America.