Maine's largest city is celebrated in this concise narrative history, abundantly illustrated, with a lengthy and informative timeline of key events, and featuring two dozen biographical profiles of important Portland people.Who knew so many surprises could await a reader? Destroyed by four nations, birthplace to both national heroes and villains, burned, reborn, and still building anew in the twenty-first century, one of America's most surprising small cities comes to life in this bright, brisk history.-Rep. Herb Adams, historian and Maine State Legislator
Allan Levinsky, a Portland native, is a graduate of the University of Maine. He is the author of At Home with the General, about Maine's Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain; A Short History of Portland; and The Night the Sky Turned Red, about the great Portland Fire of 1866. He works for the Maine Historical Society as a guide at the boyhood home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and has served as a volunteer for other historical organizations in Maine.