This collection is both a tribute to the distinguished work of Thomas H. O'Connor, the dean of Boston historians, and a survey of the best and innovative contemporary work on Boston's diverse histories.

James O'Toole is Associate Professor of History at Boston College. He is the author of Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920 and Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1859-1944. David Quigley is Assistant Professor of History at Boston College. He is the author of Second Founding: New York City and the Reconstruction of American Democracy and coeditor (with David N. Gellman) of Jim Crow New York: A Documentary History of Race and Citizenship, 1777-1877. Thomas H. O'Connor is University Historian and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Boston College. His numerous books include Boston Catholics: A History of the Church and Its People; Civil War Boston: Home Front and Battlefield; The Boston Irish: A Political History; and The Hub: Boston Past and Present, all published by Northeastern University Press.