Brooklyn has all the features of a "global borough": It is a base of immigrant labor and ethnically diverse communities, of social and cultural capital, of global transportation, cultural production, and policy innovation. At once a model of sustainable urbanization and overdevelopment, the question is now: What will become of Global Brooklyn? Tracing the emergence of Brooklyn from village outpost to global borough, Brooklyn Tides investigates the nature and consequences of global forces that have crossed the East River and identifies alternative models for urban development in global capitalism. Benjamin Shepard and Mark Noonan provide a unique ethnographic reading of the literature, social activism, and changing tides impacting this ever-transforming space. Cover and interior images of a rapidly transforming global borough by photographer Caroline Shepard.

Benjamin Heim Shepard is a professor of Human Services at New York City College of Technology, located across the street from Brooklyn Bridge in the epicenter of a rapidly transforming downtown Brooklyn. Much of Shepard's scholarship is based on the ethnographic study of social services and social movements in New York. He is the author/editor of many books, including Rebel Friendships, The Beach Beneath the Streets and From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization. Mark J. Noonan is professor of English at New York City College of Technology. He is the author of Reading the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine: American Literature and Culture, 1870-1893 (Kent State UP, 2010) and co-editor of The Place Where We Dwell: Reading and Writing About New York City (2012). His current book project is entitled City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press.