Made Local with Ed Simon, Presented by Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures

Ed Simon tells the story of Pittsburgh through this exploration of its hidden histories—the LA Review of Books calls it an “epic, atomic history of the Steel City.”

The land surrounding the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers has supported communities of humans for millennia. Over the past four centuries, it has been transformed countless times by the many people who call it home. In this brief, lyrical, and idiosyncratic collection, Ed Simon, a staff writer at The Millions, follows the story of America’s furnace through a series of interconnected segments, covering all manner of Pittsburgh’s beloved people, places, and things, from “Paleolithic Pittsburgh” to the mythic Joe Magarac. Accessible and funny, An Alternative History of Pittsburgh is a must-read for anyone curious about this storied city, and for Pittsburghers who think they know it all too well.

Ed Simon is a staff writer for The Millions and a contributing editor for the History News Network. He is the author of several books, most recently Printed in Utopia: The Renaissance’s Radicalism. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review Daily, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Poetry, McSweeney’s, Aeon, Jacobin, Salon, The New Republic, and The New York Times among dozens of others. A native of Pittsburgh, he currently lives in northern Virginia.