About James Wunsch

I am Emeritus Professor of Historical and Education Studies at SUNY Empire State. For the past few years, I solicited and edited upwards of fifty reviews of books in urban history for The Metropole , the blog of the Urban History Association. I am presently serving as staff volunteer to the head of acquisitions at the New York Society Library. I have written scholarly and popular publications including the Journal of Urban History.

James Wunsch is Emeritus Professor of Historical and Educational Studies at SUNY Empire State.

NBN Episodes hosted by James:

Becky M. Nicolaides, "The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945" (Oxford UP, 2024)

October 22, 2025

The New Suburbia

Becky M. Nicolaides
Hosted by James Wunsch

The adoption of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, triggered a wave of immigration to the U.S. not seen since before the First World War. But these newcomer…

Stacy Horn, "Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York" (Algonquin Books, 2019)

June 27, 2025

Damnation Island

Stacy Horn
Hosted by James Wunsch

Conceived as the most modern, humane incarceration facility the world had ever seen, New York's Blackwell's Island, site of a lunatic asylum, two pris…

Jorge Almazán et al., "Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City" (Oro Editions, 2024)

June 19, 2024

Emergent Tokyo

Jorge Almazán and Studiolab
Hosted by James Wunsch

If ancient Kyoto stands for orderly elegance, then Tokyo, within the world’s most populated metropolitan area, calls to mind–– jam-packed chaos. But i…

Julia Wertz, "Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City" (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2017)

August 13, 2023

Tenements, Towers & Trash

Julia Wertz
Hosted by James Wunsch

Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2017) is a comically illustrated chronicle o…

Lillian Colon, "Lilly: The First Latina Rockette" (Lilly Enterprises, 2021)

March 7, 2023

Lilly

Lillian Colon
Hosted by James Wunsch

Lilly: The First Latina Rockette (Lilly Enterprises, 2021) is the improbable story of a Puerto Rican toddler, confined by her father for 15 years to …