The Gods of New York

£12.99

New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt and reeling city back to life. But it also entered 1986 as a city divided. Nearly one-third of the city’s Black and Hispanic residents were living below the poverty line. Thousands of New Yorkers were sleeping in the streets – and in many cases addicted to drugs, dying of AIDS, or suffering from mental illness. The manufacturing jobs that had once sustained a thriving middle class had vanished. Long-simmering racial tensions were boiling over. Over the next four years, a singular confluence of events – involving a cast of outsized, unforgettable characters – would widen those divisions into chasms. In this book, Jonathan Mahler tells the story of these outsized characters and of these convulsive, defining years.

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Scheduled for publication on 14th May, 2026
The book will be available on or after this date. If you would like to preorder a copy, we will notify you when it is ready to collect.

SKU: 9781804955147 Category: Tags: , Publisher/imprint : Penguin Books
Page count : 512
Published on 14th May, 2026

Description

‘Vivid and compelling’ – The Telegraph

‘A propulsive, gorgeously reported account of the forces that re-shaped New York in the late 1980s, The Gods of New York is brilliant historical non-fiction that doubles as a warning about the future.’
– Emily Nussbaum, author of Cue the Sun

‘A rip-roaring, sweeping, essential work of history… A must read.’ – Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life.

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A Foyles Monthly Top Ten Read

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A rollicking, real-life Bonfire of the Vanities from bestselling author Jonathan Mahler. Gods of New York is sweeping chronicle of four years in 1980s New York that would transform the city and leave it more divided than ever.

New York City, 1986: Donald Trump’s real estate empire is booming, despite his constant clashes with Mayor Ed Koch. U.S. Attorney Rudy Guiliani is indicting mafia dons. Ivan Boesky is convicted of insider trading. Spike Lee releases his first feature film. The headlines scream of the Preppy Murder, the AIDS crisis, the crack epidemic and soon, Black Monday. Over the next four years the city will be transformed as the deep divisions lying beneath the soaring skyscrapers and a thriving Wall Street become chasms. Jonathan Mahler’s sweeping chronicle of the late 1980s is a wonderfully exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities and its larger-than-life characters, at a time of historic upheaval and seismic change.

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Weight 0.5 kg
Dimensions 19.8 × 12.9 × 3.5 cm
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