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150 The Michigan Historical Review These minor quibbles aside, The Catholic Calumet is a welcome addition to the scholarship on religious encounters between missionaries and Indians. It is recommended reading for those interested in such encounters, but essential for anyone studying the history of colonial interactions in the pays d’en haut. Edward E. Andrews Providence College Scott Martelle. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012. Pp. 288. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth, $24.95. How did the wheels come off the Motor City, and why should the country care? Those questions are at the core of this new book about Detroit by Scott Martelle, a one-time Detroit resident and former journalist with the Detroit News and the Los Angeles Times. The book is written for a general national audience, one that increasingly wonders whether the disaster that has befallen Detroit is unique to one place or if it heralds the fate of other American cities. The author did not set out to produce “an exhaustive look at the entire history of the city,” and the subtitle A Biography indicates that he did not intend for it to be read as a standard history book. Nevertheless, Martelle believes that “key to finding any sort of plan for fixing Detroit . . . is to fully understand what Detroit once was and how it came to be what it is” (pp. xiv-xv). Martelle highlights certain undeniably major events in the history of Detroit, starting with its founding in 1701 by the French. Political and economic developments occupy center stage, as does the history of African Americans, and therefore black-white relations, in Detroit. Due to his journalist skills, Martelle has a flair for telling a good story. His dramatic accounts of the failed attempt by slave catchers to seize Thornton Blackburn and Lucie Blackburn in 1833, the bloody race riot of 1863, the assassination of radio personality Jerry Buckley in 1930, the right-wing terrorism of the Black Legion during the 1930s, and the unbelievable daring of gangs such as the Errol Flynns and Young Boys, Inc., in the late 1970s and early 1980s, are all superb. Most intriguing, however, are the sections where the author departs from the historical narrative, using interviews he conducted during the research for the book to tell the stories of six Detroiters whose lives intersect with the city at different moments and in different ways. Book Reviews 151 Building on the scholarship of Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Detroit (1996), Martelle locates the roots of the present-day crisis not in the 1967 riot or the election of Coleman Young in 1973, but rather in the 1950s, when the dismantling of the city’s industrial base commenced and racial fighting over housing was at a fever pitch. Two “watershed moments” stand out for Martelle. The first was the defeat of George Edwards by Alfred Cobo in the 1949 mayoral election, when UAW leaders and activists backing Edwards failed to secure enough white working-class votes to uphold a liberal political and racial agenda (particularly support for public housing). The second was the supposed failure immediately after World War II by auto manufacturers to leap into defense contracts and diversify the local economy through partnership with the emerging military-industrial complex. It is true that mono-industrialism has not served Detroit and its region well, as Martelle argues; however, given the dramatic cutbacks to the U.S. armed forces and defense spending from 1945 until the Korean War in 1950, automakers at the time made the perfectly sensible decision to stick with what they knew best: making automobiles. Martelle refuses to offer “rosy suggestions for solutions” (p. xv) to Detroit’s predicament. For example, chapter 19 is dedicated to showing how and why Pittsburgh’s redevelopment is not applicable to Detroit. Although the author finds pockets of surprising optimism among the entrepreneurs, artists, preservationists, community gardeners, and others who are committed to improving life in the city, he believes their local efforts have a quite-limited impact. “These incremental flickers of life,” he maintains, “do nothing to address the city’s core problem: disinvestment and abandonment propelled by...

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