The End of the Hamptons: Scenes from the Class Struggle in America’s Paradise

In this absorbing account of New York’s famous vacation playground, Corey Dolgon goes beyond the celebrity tales of P. Diddy, Lizzie Grubman, Calvin Klein, and their polo games to tell us the story of this complex and contentious land. Dolgon argues that Long Island’s East End has a long and tortured past, rife with class struggle between the haves and the have-nots. This turmoil is a direct result of the Hamptons’ unique founding and history. As wave after wave of immigrants have settled on the island, a pattern of anxiety and exclusion has risen to the surface, compelling each new group of land owners to spurn the incoming group of potential residents. From the displacement of Native Americans by the Puritans to the first wave of Manhattan elites who built the Summer Colony, to the current infusion of telecommuting Manhattanites who now want to live there year-round, the story of the Hamptons is a vicious cycle of supposed paradise lost. Drawing on this fabled land’s history, The End of the Hamptons provides a fascinating portrait of current controversies: the Native Americans fighting over land claims and threatening to build a casino, the environmental activists clashing with the McMansion builders, and the Latino day laborers and working-class natives trying to eke out a living in an ever-increasingly expensive town.