Boardwalk Empire Themes

In many ways, Boardwalk Empire documents the birth of the modern era. We watch as railroads connect small towns to big cities for the first time ever, and as the Industrial Revolution transforms th...

Atlantic City is a one-of-a-kind place, for better or worse. Founded by Jonathan Pitney, Atlantic City has always had one driving purpose—to snag themselves some tourists. Sometimes they do it by...

The politicians we meet over the course of Boardwalk Empire aren't exactly savory dudes. There's Nucky Johnson, who rules the local Republican Party and the local criminal underworld with an iron f...

Everything we know about power we learned from Nucky Johnson. The dude has it made: He runs Atlantic City's local Republican Party, rules the criminal underworld with an iron fist, and most importa...

Although the spotlight stays on guys like Nucky Johnson for the bulk of Boardwalk Empire, the real stars of the show are the blue-collar workers who build Atlantic City from the ground up. Atlantic...

The dudes we meet over the course of Boardwalk Empire are so manipulative that they might as well be starring in The Wolf of Wall Street. We meet corrupt politicians who fix elections, steely busin...

The tricky truth is that race plays a big role in the development of Atlantic City. After the Civil War, many newly freed slaves made their way up North in hopes of a better life for themselves and...

In the wacky world of Atlantic City, there's a very fine line between criminals and politicians. We don't even mean that metaphorically—throughout the city's history, criminals have been protecte...