Harvard Square: An Illustrated History Since 1950

Harvard Square: An Illustrated History Since 1950

What do Barack Obama, Samuel Beckett, Fidel Castro, Joan Baez, Conan Oâ€™Brien, Natalie Portman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower have in common? Their footsteps have all crossed paths in Harvard Square. This well-trod patch of Cambridge turf at the corner of the United Statesâ€™ most renowned university has long been a crossroads where poetry, retailing, politics, design, performance, and every other cultural endeavor intersect.Â

Â From the squareâ€™s tweedy aspect in the 1950s through its many transformations in the â€™60s,â€™70s, and beyond, author Mo Lotman gives a decade-by-decade account of Harvard Squareâ€™s history, traditions, and lore. The bookstores, the billiard parlors, the barbershops, the booze and burger joints: theyâ€™re all here. Based on interviews with more than a hundred of the squareâ€™s denizens, illustrated with archival photographs, and graced with texts by John Updike, Bill McKibben, Governor Bill Weld, and others, Harvard Square brings â€œthe smartest urban space in Americaâ€ to vivid life.

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