Introduction -- Town meeting politics in colonial and revolutionary Boston / G.B. Warden -- Boston, 1800-1840 From deferential-participant to party politics / Ronald P. Formisano -- The politics of the Boston Brahmins / Frederic Cople Jaher -- Yankee leadership in a divided city, 1860-1890 / Geoffrey Blodgett -- From party to factions / Paul Kleppner -- The irony of progressive reform / Constance K. Burns -- Curley of Boston: the search for Irish legitimacy / Charles H. Trout -- Boston's Irish mayors / William V. Shannon -- Boston's Kevin White, a mayor who survives / Martha W. Weinberg -- All in the family: the dilemmas of busing and the conflict of values / J. Anthony Lukas -- Conclusion / by Ronald P. Formisano.