Stewart Desmond’s history of Buffalo makes Buffalo history in its own right, as the first full-scale narrative history of our fair city.
“My history is not a novel,” he says, “but I have tried to use some of the storytelling techniques of a novel.”
As well he might: Desmond, 69, has a doctorate in American literature from New York University.
“I always said that when I retired, I was going to write a history of Buffalo,” he says. “So I started working on it with no idea at all how long it would take.”
The answer, so far, is five years. The first four volumes came out early this year. Two more are in the works. Desmond sees our region’s history through the people who lived it as much as through the events of their times. It is an approach that makes the distant past come alive. You can almost smell the embers of Buffalo’s burning during the War of 1812.
“I didn’t write this for an academic audience,” Desmond says of the generously footnoted books, “but I have made a real effort to document everything so that people who are interested in Buffalo history could look at the source material that I found and go deeper. Or check that things happened the way that I say they happened. There is room for lots of different points of view.”
“Main Street: The History of Buffalo” is the overarching title of the series, and each of the volumes stands on its own; they need not be read in chronological order.
“Out of the Wilderness: 1679-1814” tells the story of the Senecas and their encounters with the Europeans and African Americans who came to the…
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