In this short passage from “The New Yorker” we get this interesting “tug of war” between two authors who are battling for whos more credible when it comes to Brooklyn and its history. The passage starts out with the introduction of a men named Brian Merlis, whom is one of the authors involved in the battle. We quickly learn that Merlis recieved a book for his birthday entitled “Historic Photos of Brooklyn” and that he was “moved” enough to send unsolicited reviews to the Brooklyn Paper and the Brooklyn Daily. As you can guess, the reviews were not positive, and Merlis criticizes the book along with the publisher using his expertise to back him up. Merlis also noted that he found many mistakes, for example: “The author calls Williamsburg a fashionable resort until the 1903 opening…When in actually its resort days ended by the close of the Civil War.”; this quote shows that Merlis feels as if the author is uncredible.
The second paragraph serves more as a counter-argument for “the author in question” John Manbeck. He is introduced along with the info of him being Brooklyn’s official historian from 1993 to 2001. Manbeck’s credibility is then defended a few time throught this paragraph, one instance being that he took his characterizations of Williamsburg from his grandfathers writings, which indeed serves as a defence from Merlins previous accusation. Also we learn that Manbeck ommited Merlis’s work from his compiled list of fifty-six recommended resources during his tenure at Borough Hall. The last thing mentioned was that Merlis came to one of Manbeck’s meetings and told him why he did not publish any of his books onto Manbecks’s list. Manbeck simply told him that he doesn’t have any good books, and then the paragraph ends with a statement that Manbeck said to Merlis which defended his publisher “Turner” from being a vanity press.
