The Downtown Jews: Portraits of an Immigrant Generation.

A very well-researched, dense but intriguing book by historian, Ronald Sanders. It is a very interesting work, at times evoking a world so unfamiliar, yet so fabled. It soars when it describes literature and stories. This is no collective biography, no "portraits of an immigrant generation." It gives only the most general depiction of "the downtown Jews" in the sense of the teeming huddled masses. Rather, it focuses generally on the political culture of the Lower East Side around the turn of the century and more specifically on the thoughts, life, and writings of Abraham Cahan, the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward.