Edwin G. Burrows, "a Brooklyn College professor who shared the Pulitzer Prize for the magisterial narrative Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898," died May 4, the New York Times reported. He was 74. In addition to teaching at Brooklyn College for 41 years, Burrows was also the author of Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (2008) and The Finest Building in America: The New York Crystal Palace, 1853-1858 (2018).
In 1999, Burrows and Mike Wallace, a fellow professor at the City University of New York, won the Pulitzer Prize for history for Gotham, "which was instantly acclaimed a definitive, populist and novelistic account of the city's first three centuries," the Times noted.
"The history of the city provides a framework for grasping the whole of the American experience," Burrows said in a 2012 interview with the blog The Junto. "You really can't say that about any other place in the country.... Careerwise, New York City has given me so many fascinating subjects for historical research as well as an unequaled array of libraries and archives. The only downside is that colleagues in other fields get to travel to exotic places like Paris or Cairo. Me. I get to ride the subway."
"Ted fashioned a masterful synthesis of New York's colonial and revolutionary history, webbing together a generation's worth of economic, political, social and cultural studies, into an engaging and mellifluous narrative, hailed by scholars and citizens alike," said Wallace, who last year released his own sequel, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919.