Originally published: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 407-466) and index.

Pt. I An Uncredentialed Woman 1916-1954 -- ch. 1 A Generous Place to Live -- ch. 2 Outlaw -- ch. 3 Ladies' Nest of Owls, and Other Milestones in the Education of Miss Jane Butzner -- ch. 4 The Great Bewildering World -- ch. 5 Morningside Heights -- ch. 6 Women's Work -- ch. 7 Amerika -- ch. 8 Trushchoby -- pt. II In the Big World 1954-1968 -- ch. 9 Disenchantment -- ch. 10 Ten Minutes at Harvard -- ch. 11 A Person Worth Talking To -- ch. 12 A Manuscript to Show Us -- ch. 13 Mother Jacobs of Hudson Street -- ch. 14 The Physical Fallacy -- ch. 15 West Village Warrior -- ch. 16 Luncheon at the White House -- ch. 17 Gas Masks at the Pentagon -- pt. III On Albany Avenue 1968-2006 -- ch. 18 A Circle of Their Own -- ch. 19 Settling In -- ch. 20 Our Jane -- ch. 21 Flummoxed -- ch. 22 Adam, Karl, and Jane -- ch. 23 Webs of Trust -- ch. 24 Ideas That Matter -- ch. 25 Civilization's Child.

Jane Jacobs was a phenomenal woman who wrote seven groundbreaking books, saved neighborhoods, stopped expressways, was arrested twice, and engaged in thousands of impassioned debates -- all of which she won. Robert Kanigel's revelatory portrait of Jacobs, based on new sources and interviews, brings to life the child who challenged her third-grade teacher; the high school poet; the mother who raised three children; the journalist who honed her skills at Architectural Forum and Fortune before writing her most famous book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities ; and the activist who helped lead a successful protest against Robert Moses's proposed expressway through her beloved Greenwich Village.