The most iconic neighborhood in the United States, Harlem has been a bastion of freedom and the capital of Black America. Its renaissance changed our arts, culture, and politics forever, but Harlem has played a vital role in American history for centuries. A point of contact between natives and explorers, a colonial outpost on the edge of the known world, and then an agricultural center under British rule, Harlem was also the site of a key battle in the Revolutionary War. Later, wealthy elites built great estates there for entertainment and to escape the epidemics ravaging downtown. In the nineteenth century, Harlem urbanized, and waves of immigrants arrived from Germany, Italy, Ireland, and elsewhere. This mix of cultures, extraordinary wealth, and extreme poverty was electrifying and explosive, a crucible for American identity.