The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum

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Publisher : New Word City
ISBN 13 : 161230849X
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (123 download)

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Book Synopsis The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum by : Nina Burleigh

Download or read book The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum written by Nina Burleigh and published by New Word City. This book was released on 2015-03-13 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her illuminating and dramatic biography The Stranger and the Statesman, New York Times bestselling author Nina Burleigh reveals a little-known slice of history in the life and times of the man responsible for the creation of the United States' principal cultural institution, the Smithsonian. It was one of the nineteenth century's greatest philanthropic gifts - and one of its most puzzling mysteries. In 1829, a wealthy English naturalist named James Smithson left his library, mineral collection, and entire fortune to the "United States of America, to found... an establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men" - even though he had never visited the United States or known any Americans. In this fascinating book, Burleigh pieces together the reclusive benefactor's life, beginning with his origins as the Paris-born illegitimate son of the first Duke of Northumberland and a wild adventuress who preserved for her son a fortune through gall and determination. The book follows Smithson through his university years and his passionate study of minerals across Europe during the chaos of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Detailed are his imprisonment - simply for being an Englishman in the wrong place - his experiences in the gambling dens of France, and his lonely and painstaking scientific pursuits. After Smithson's death, nineteenth-century American politicians were given the task of securing his half-million dollars - the equivalent today of $50 million - and then trying to determine how to increase and diffuse knowledge from the muddy, brawling new city of Washington. Burleigh discloses how Smithson's bequest was nearly lost due to fierce battles among many clashing Americans - Southern slavers, states' rights advocates, nation-builders, corrupt frontiersmen, and Anglophobes who argued over whether a gift from an Englishman should even be accepted. She also reveals the efforts of the unsung heroes, mainly former president John Quincy Adams, whose tireless efforts finally saw Smithson's curious notion realized in 1846, with a castle housing the United States' first and greatest cultural and scientific establishment.

The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1137279621
Total Pages : 542 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (372 download)

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Book Synopsis The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by : Phyllis Lee Levin

Download or read book The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams written by Phyllis Lee Levin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An assessment of the sixth American president's international life and complicated marriage considers his talents as a linguist and diplomat, citing his achievements during the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Age.

John Quincy Adams

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Publisher : Nova Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9781594547973
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (479 download)

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Book Synopsis John Quincy Adams by : Paul E. Teed

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by Paul E. Teed and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2006 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the standards that historians usually use to judge presidents, John Quincy Adams was a failure. Although better qualified for the office than any American of his generation, he served for only one term and was unable to accomplish any of the most cherished goals set forth so boldly at the beginning of his presidency. His election to the presidency in 1824 was itself fraught with controversy and charges of political corruption and he was soundly defeated in his bid for re-election by Andrew Jackson. To many contemporaries and even some historians, Adams has appeared completely out of touch with the democratic revolution that was transforming American life at the time. He seemed a relic of a discredited, eighteenth-century political world. Yet John Quincy Adams has not shared the fate of other presidential failures who have faded almost entirely from the national memory.

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 149306388X
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Lincoln: The Fire of Genius by : David J. Kent

Download or read book Lincoln: The Fire of Genius written by David J. Kent and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abraham Lincoln had a lifelong fascination with science and technology, a fascination that would help institutionalize science, win the Civil War, and propel the nation into the modern age. Readers will learn through Lincoln: The Fire of Genius how science and technology gradually infiltrated Lincoln’s remarkable life and influenced his growing desire to improve the condition of all men. The book traces this progression from a simple farm boy to a president who changed the world. Counter to conventional wisdom, subsistence farming provides a considerable education in agronomic science, forest ecology, hydrology, and even a little civil engineering. Continuing through a lifetime of self-study, curiosity, and hard work, Lincoln became the only President with a patent, advocated for technological advancement as a legislator in Illinois and in Washington, and became the “go-to” western lawyer on technology, and patent cases during his legal career. During the Civil War, Lincoln drew upon his commitment to science and personally encouraged inventors while taking dramatic steps to institutionalize science via the Smithsonian Institution, create the National Academy of Sciences, and initiate the Department of Agriculture. Lincoln’s insistence on high-tech weaponry, balloon surveillance, strategic use of telegraphy, and railroad deployment positioned the North to achieve Union victory.

John Quincy Adams

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0465028276
Total Pages : 641 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis John Quincy Adams by : James Traub

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by James Traub and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on Adams' diary, letters, and writings, chronicles the diplomat and president's numerous achievements and failures, revealing his unwavering moral convictions, brilliance, unyielding spirit, and political courage.

John Quincy Adams

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Author :
Publisher : Da Capo Press
ISBN 13 : 0306821303
Total Pages : 387 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (68 download)

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Book Synopsis John Quincy Adams by : Harlow Giles Unger

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by Harlow Giles Unger and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He fought for Washington, served with Lincoln, witnessed Bunker Hill, and sounded the clarion against slavery on the eve of the Civil War. He negotiated an end to the War of 1812, engineered the annexation of Florida, and won the Supreme Court decision that freed the African captives of The Amistad. He served his nation as minister to six countries, secretary of state, senator, congressman, and president. John Quincy Adams was all of these things and more. In this masterful biography, award winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals Quincy Adams as a towering figure in the nation's formative years and one of the most courageous figures in American history, which is why he ranked first in John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage. A magisterial biography and a sweeping panorama of American history from the Washington to Lincoln eras, Unger's John Quincy Adams follows one of America's most important yet least-known figures.

The Almanac of American Philanthropy

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Publisher : The Philanthropy Roundtable
ISBN 13 : 0997852607
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (978 download)

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Book Synopsis The Almanac of American Philanthropy by : Karl Zinsmeister

Download or read book The Almanac of American Philanthropy written by Karl Zinsmeister and published by The Philanthropy Roundtable. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philanthropy in America is a giant undertaking—every year more than $390 billion is voluntarily given by individuals, foundations, and businesses to a riot of good causes. Donation rates are two to ten times higher in the U.S. than in comparable nations, and privately funded efforts to solve social problems, enrich culture, and strengthen society are among the most significant undertakings in the United States. The Almanac of American Philanthropy was created to serve as the definitive reference on America's distinctive philanthropy. Upon its publication it immediately became the authoritative, yet highly readable, 1,342-page bible of private giving—chronicling the greatest donors in history, the most influential achievements, the essential statistics, and summaries of vital ideas about charitable action. Now there is this new Compact Edition of the Almanac. It offers highlights of the crucial information and fascinating arguments contained in the full-length Almanac, in a condensed format. All updated to 2017!

Alexander Von Humboldt and the United States

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691200807
Total Pages : 445 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Alexander Von Humboldt and the United States by : Eleanor Jones Harvey

Download or read book Alexander Von Humboldt and the United States written by Eleanor Jones Harvey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The enduring influence of naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt on American art, culture, and politics Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was one of the most influential scientists and thinkers of his age. A Prussian-born geographer, naturalist, explorer, and illustrator, he was a prolific writer whose books graced the shelves of American artists, scientists, philosophers, and politicians. Humboldt visited the United States for six weeks in 1804, engaging in a lively exchange of ideas with such figures as Thomas Jefferson and the painter Charles Willson Peale. It was perhaps the most consequential visit by a European traveler in the young nation's history, one that helped to shape an emerging American identity grounded in the natural world. In this beautifully illustrated book, Eleanor Jones Harvey examines how Humboldt left a lasting impression on American visual arts, sciences, literature, and politics. She shows how he inspired a network of like-minded individuals who would go on to embrace the spirit of exploration, decry slavery, advocate for the welfare of Native Americans, and extol America's wilderness as a signature component of the nation's sense of self. Harvey traces how Humboldt's ideas influenced the transcendentalists and the landscape painters of the Hudson River School, and laid the foundations for the Smithsonian Institution, the Sierra Club, and the National Park Service. Alexander von Humboldt and the United States looks at paintings, sculptures, maps, and artifacts, and features works by leading American artists such as Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin, Frederic Church, and Samuel F. B. Morse. Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Exhibition Schedule Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC September 18, 2020–January 3, 2021

Mr. Adams's Last Crusade

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Author :
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 0786744952
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (867 download)

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Book Synopsis Mr. Adams's Last Crusade by : Joseph Wheelan

Download or read book Mr. Adams's Last Crusade written by Joseph Wheelan and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When John Quincy Adams—the sixty-three-year-old former president, U.S. senator, secretary of state, and diplomat—was elected to the House of Representatives by his Massachusetts neighbors, he embarked on a spectacular late-life career. He became Congress's most acerbic and influential critic of slavery as well as a tireless proponent for human freedoms and First Amendment rights. This remarkable congressional career utterly transformed him, the public's perception of him, and his legacy—in many ways redeeming his failed presidency. Mr. Adams's Last Crusade renders an insightful portrait of a man who placed his country above politics.

The Doomsday Lobby

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1441966854
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis The Doomsday Lobby by : James T. Bennett

Download or read book The Doomsday Lobby written by James T. Bennett and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-09-11 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Federal patronage of science was never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, but they did seek to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Art” by granting inventors patent rights. However, direct subvention to scientists and scientific organizations was not considered appropriate activity of the central government. In the 19th Century, American science was funded almost entirely through private investors. Since WWII, however, the federal government has become the primary patron of American science. From the race-to-space in the 1950s to current furor over global warming, Bennett traces the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which government has co-opted scientific research and reinforced a culture in which challengers to proscribed wisdom are frozen out. Citing original documents and media reports, Bennett offers a compelling, entertaining, and thought-provoking perspective on political influence on scientific research and its implications for a democratic society. "During the Nineteenth Century, almost entirely on private funding, American science grew from practically nothing to world class. Now, however, over fifty percent of American science is funded by the federal government. Dr. Bennett traces the path, "crisis" after "crisis," by which American science became practically an arm of the federal government. His tale is a cautionary one, warning against future "crisis mongers" who would extend the government's already majority control of American science even further. His warning is a timely one, and it should be heeded." Joseph P. Martino, author of Science Funding: Politics and Porkbarrel "Bennett's latest book offers a challenging interpretation of the rise of the American federal science establishment since World War II. Focusing primarily on the growth of the space program, Bennett argues that crisis, real or imagined, is the source of state power and state funding for science. The Doomsday Lobby offers what no doubt will be viewed as a controversial contribution to the history of American science policy, and more broadly to an understanding of the role of the state in society." James D. Savage, Professor of Politics, University of Virginia, and author of Funding Science in America

Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo

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Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700635696
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo by : Daniel Vandersommers

Download or read book Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo written by Daniel Vandersommers and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2023-09-29 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded amid the urban commotion of Washington, DC, before the dawn of the twentieth century, the National Zoological Park opened to “preserve, teach, and conduct research about the animal world.” Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo is a study of this important cultural landmark from 1887 to 1920. Centered on the animals themselves, each chapter looks from a different angle at the influential science of popular zoology in order to shed new light on the complex, entangled relationships between humans and animals. Daniel Vandersommers’s goal is twofold. First, through narrative, he shows how zoo animals always ran away from the zoo. This is meant literally—animals escaped frequently—but even more so, figuratively. Living, breathing, historical zoo animals ran away from their cultural constructions, and these constructions ran away from the living bodies they were made to represent. The author shows that the resulting gaps produced by runaway animals contain concealed, distorted, and erased histories worthy of uncovering. Second, Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo demonstrates how the popular zoology fostered by the National Zoo shaped every aspect of American science, culture, and conservation during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Between the 1880s and World War I, as intellectuals debated Darwinism and scientists institutionalized the laboratory, zoological parks suddenly appeared at the heart of nearly every major American city, captivating tens of millions of visitors. Vandersommers follows stories previously hidden within the National Zoo in order to help us reconsider the place of zoos and their inhabitants in the twenty-first century.

Like Grass Before the Scythe

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Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817315527
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Like Grass Before the Scythe by : William Remmel

Download or read book Like Grass Before the Scythe written by William Remmel and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2007-03-22 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During a conflict that saw death visit many households in the land, this is the story of a young recruit's devotion to family and nation. William Remmel's letters cover more than two full years of service in the 121st New York Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, from August 1862 to October of 1864. They provide details on military and social history in the eastern theater of operations and on the experience of the homefront in upstate New York among a largely immigrant, working-class family and community.

Apocalyptic Geographies

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691203261
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Apocalyptic Geographies by : Jerome Tharaud

Download or read book Apocalyptic Geographies written by Jerome Tharaud and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How nineteenth-century Protestant evangelicals used print and visual media to shape American culture In nineteenth-century America, "apocalypse" referred not to the end of the world but to sacred revelation, and "geography" meant both the physical landscape and its representation in printed maps, atlases, and pictures. In Apocalyptic Geographies, Jerome Tharaud explores how white Protestant evangelicals used print and visual media to present the antebellum landscape as a “sacred space” of spiritual pilgrimage, and how devotional literature influenced secular society in important and surprising ways. Reading across genres and media—including religious tracts and landscape paintings, domestic fiction and missionary memoirs, slave narratives and moving panoramas—Apocalyptic Geographies illuminates intersections of popular culture, the physical spaces of an expanding and urbanizing nation, and the spiritual narratives that ordinary Americans used to orient their lives. Placing works of literature and visual art—from Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden—into new contexts, Tharaud traces the rise of evangelical media, the controversy and backlash it engendered, and the role it played in shaping American modernity.

Legacies of Ancient Greece in Contemporary Perspectives

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Publisher : Vernon Press
ISBN 13 : 1648894453
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (488 download)

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Book Synopsis Legacies of Ancient Greece in Contemporary Perspectives by : Thomas M. F. Gerry

Download or read book Legacies of Ancient Greece in Contemporary Perspectives written by Thomas M. F. Gerry and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2022-04-20 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Legacies of Ancient Greece in Contemporary Perspectives' provides readers with opportunities to reconnect with the origins of thought in an astonishingly wide variety of areas: politics, economics, art, spirituality, gender relations, medicine, literature, philosophy, music, and so on. As the chapters in the book show, Classical Greek thought still informs much of contemporary culture. There are countless books and articles that deal with ancient Greece historically, and a similar number that focus on Greece as a contemporary travel destination. There is both a lot of interest in Greece as a place now, and in Greece’s history and culture, which formed the early origins of much of Western civilisation. The distinctive attraction of 'Legacies of Ancient Greece in Contemporary Perspectives' is that it brings together, by means of fascinating examples, the two areas of interest: Greece’s past in relation to its, and our, present. In addition to the general interest factor, the book suggests questions for re-examination: the individual chapters provide abundant original research on their subjects, and in most cases offer critiques on the assumptions about, and the interpretations of, Greece’s ancient and contemporary cultural practices. These challenges themselves stimulate far-reaching thought and discussion, a feature highly attractive to readers (and students) wishing to develop a more in-depth understanding of the legacies of ancient Greece.

Historic Sites and Landmarks That Shaped America [2 volumes]

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1243 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Historic Sites and Landmarks That Shaped America [2 volumes] by : Mitchell Newton-Matza

Download or read book Historic Sites and Landmarks That Shaped America [2 volumes] written by Mitchell Newton-Matza and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 1243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the significance of places that built our cultural past, this guide is a lens into historical sites spanning the entire history of the United States, from Acoma Pueblo to Ground Zero. Historic Sites and Landmarks That Shaped America: From Acoma Pueblo to Ground Zero encompasses more than 200 sites from the earliest settlements to the present, covering a wide variety of locations. It includes concise yet detailed entries on each landmark that explain its importance to the nation. With entries arranged alphabetically according to the name of the site and the state in which it resides, this work covers both obscure and famous landmarks to demonstrate how a nation can grow and change with the creation or discovery of important places. The volume explores the ways different cultures viewed, revered, or even vilified these sites. It also examines why people remember such places more than others. Accessible to both novice and expert readers, this well-researched guide will appeal to anyone from high school students to general adult readers.

Museums, Monuments, and National Parks

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Publisher : Univ of Massachusetts Press
ISBN 13 : 1558499407
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (584 download)

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Book Synopsis Museums, Monuments, and National Parks by : Denise D. Meringolo

Download or read book Museums, Monuments, and National Parks written by Denise D. Meringolo and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rapid expansion of the field of public history since the 1970s has led many to believe that it is a relatively new profession. In this book, Denise D. Meringolo shows that the roots of public history actually reach back to the nineteenth century, when the federal government entered into the work of collecting and preserving the nation's natural and cultural resources. Yet it was not until the emergence of the education-oriented National Park Service history program in the 1920s and 1930s that public history found an institutional home. Even then, tensions between administrators in Washington and practitioners on the ground at National Parks, monuments, and museums continued to redefine the scope and substance of the field. The process of definition persists to this day as public historians establish a growing presence in major universities throughout the United States and abroad. Book jacket.

Washington

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Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465061583
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Washington by : Tom Lewis

Download or read book Washington written by Tom Lewis and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 24, 1791, President George Washington chose the site for the young nation's capital: ten miles square, it stretched from the highest point of navigation on the Potomac River, and encompassed the ports of Georgetown and Alexandria. From the moment the federal government moved to the District of Columbia in December 1800, Washington has been central to American identity and life. Shaped by politics and intrigue, poverty and largess, contradictions and compromises, Washington has been, from its beginnings, the stage on which our national dramas have played out. In Washington, the historian Tom Lewis paints a sweeping portrait of the capital city whose internal conflicts and promise have mirrored those of America writ large. Breathing life into the men and women who struggled to help the city realize its full potential, he introduces us to the mercurial French artist who created an ornate plan for the city "en grande" members of the nearly forgotten anti-Catholic political party who halted construction of the Washington monument for a quarter century; and the cadre of congressmen who maintained segregation and blocked the city's progress for decades. In the twentieth century Washington's Mall and streets would witness a Ku Klux Klan march, the violent end to the encampment of World War I "Bonus Army" veterans, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the painful rebuilding of the city in the wake of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. "It is our national center," Frederick Douglass once said of Washington, DC; "it belongs to us, and whether it is mean or majestic, whether arrayed in glory or covered in shame, we cannot but share its character and its destiny." Interweaving the story of the city's physical transformation with a nuanced account of its political, economic, and social evolution, Lewis tells the powerful history of Washington, DC " the site of our nation's highest ideals and some of our deepest failures.