Portland history reviewed and updated in new book

Author John Bauman is releasing what the University of Southern Maine is calling the “first comprehensive history of Portland since the 1800s,” and he’s slated to read a passage and sign copies next Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Woodbury Campus Center.

A couple of sentences from USM, where Bauman is a visiting research professor, about the author’s new release:

Bauman takes readers from 1632 to the late 20th-century revitalization of the Old Port and 21st-century plans for Portland’s waterfront, in his book, “Gateway to Vacationland: The Making of Portland, Maine.” Much of the city’s history, Bauman shows, has been defined by the effort to reconcile the competing interests of balancing the imperatives of economic growth with a desire to preserve Portland’s natural beauty.

Here’s what fellow author Michael J. Rawson, who penned the similarly researched “Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston,” had to say about Bauman’s book in a statement:

An extremely well researched overview of Portland’s history. The author does a particularly good job connecting that history to the larger national narrative. In fact, there are points in the book where I almost felt as if I were actually in Portland watching the pageant of American history unfold around me.

Seth Koenig

About Seth Koenig

Seth has nearly a decade of professional journalism experience and writes about the greater Portland region.