LAUSR

spare—135 pages before endnotes—but it is packed with harrowing tidbits and manages to contextualize the D.C. riots in both the larger scheme of 1960s America and as a stand-alone event. There is scant literature on these particular riots, but that is, in part, what makes Walker’s work a useful contribution, blending urban history, local history, and political history to show how the timeline of certain D.C. neighborhoods descending into smoldering ruins was both typical in its specifics and exceptional in its location. Walker eschews the symbolism of the Washington Mall in favor of a harsher portrait, but that does not make the symbolism of the city itself irrelevant; if conditions were this dire and anger this fervent in America’s political center, what does that say about the state of America in 1968? Walker need not answer that question, preferring to let the horrifying, normalized specifics and hotly contested aftermath of the riots offer both the answer and the centerpiece of his narrative. In the wake of the murder of America’s greatest civil rights icon, a president mulled deploying U.S. troops, business owners fled as their stores were demolished, and VietnamWar veterans said that the scenes in D.C. were “just like the front line” (p. 65). Ultimately, Most of 14th Street Is Gone is a carefully researched, valuable addition to the local history of Washington, D.C., and the national history of urban riots.