David McCullough
Hardcover | Pages: 558 pages Rating: 3.91 | 17507 Users | 2133 Reviews
Present Books During The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
| Original Title: | The Greater Journey: Americans In Paris |
| ISBN: | 1416571760 (ISBN13: 9781416571766) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | France |
| Literary Awards: | Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Nonfiction (2012), Marfield Prize (National Award for Arts Writing) Nominee (2011), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for History & Biography (2011) |
Chronicle Conducive To Books The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring - and until now, untold - story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work. After risking the hazardous journey across the Atlantic, these Americans embarked on a greater journey in the City of Light. Most had never left home, never experienced a different culture. None had any guarantee of success. That they achieved so much for themselves and their country profoundly altered American history. As David McCullough writes, "Not all pioneers went west." Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in America, was one of this intrepid band. Another was Charles Sumner, who enrolled at the Sorbonne because of a burning desire to know more about everything. There he saw black students with the same ambition he had, and when he returned home, he would become the most powerful, unyielding voice for abolition in the U.S. Senate, almost at the cost of his life. Two staunch friends, James Fenimore Cooper and Samuel F. B. Morse, worked unrelentingly every day in Paris, Cooper writing and Morse painting what would be his masterpiece. From something he saw in France, Morse would also bring home his momentous idea for the telegraph. Pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk from New Orleans launched his spectacular career performing in Paris at age 15. George P. A. Healy, who had almost no money and little education, took the gamble of a lifetime and with no prospects whatsoever in Paris became one of the most celebrated portrait painters of the day. His subjects included Abraham Lincoln. Medical student Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote home of his toil and the exhilaration in "being at the center of things" in what was then the medical capital of the world. From all they learned in Paris, Holmes and his fellow "medicals" were to exert lasting influence on the profession of medicine in the United States. Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Henry James were all "discovering" Paris, marveling at the treasures in the Louvre, or out with the Sunday throngs strolling the city's boulevards and gardens. "At last I have come into a dreamland," wrote Harriet Beecher Stowe, seeking escape from the notoriety Uncle Tom's Cabin had brought her. Almost forgotten today, the heroic American ambassador Elihu Washburne bravely remained at his post through the Franco-Prussian War, the long Siege of Paris and even more atrocious nightmare of the Commune. His vivid account in his diary of the starvation and suffering endured by the people of Paris (drawn on here for the first time) is one readers will never forget. The genius of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the son of an immigrant shoemaker, and of painters Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent, three of the greatest American artists ever, would flourish in Paris, inspired by the examples of brilliant French masters, and by Paris itself. Nearly all of these Americans, whatever their troubles learning French, their spells of homesickness, and their suffering in the raw cold winters by the Seine, spent many of the happiest days and nights of their lives in Paris. McCullough tells this sweeping, fascinating story with power and intimacy, bringing us into the lives of remarkable men and women who, in Saint-Gaudens's phrase, longed "to soar into the blue." The Greater Journey is itself a masterpiece.Details Epithetical Books The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
| Title | : | The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris |
| Author | : | David McCullough |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 558 pages |
| Published | : | May 24th 2011 by Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. Cultural. France. Biography. North American Hi.... American History. Travel |
Rating Epithetical Books The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
Ratings: 3.91 From 17507 Users | 2133 ReviewsWrite-Up Epithetical Books The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
With a nod to Rachel's excellent review, this was the literary equivalent of a cup of cocoa (the chalky kind from a tin, without marshmallows) with your grandfather. It was perfectly pleasant and you will learn quite a few things about various American intellectuals and reformers who spent time in Paris during the 19th century, but the slow pace and overly detailed anecdotes are apt to make you nod off. Also, the lack of clear connections between the various characters (other than the fact thatI read 200 pages, then the last chapter and the epilogue. Although any given page was well-written and interesting, I kept waiting for some pay-off of synthesis explaining the point of McCullough's endless lists of loosely connected unimportant events. Do I really need to know about the sordid details of the love life of Augustus Saint-Gaudens? The historian is maybe supposed to be "objective" but the choice of stories and details is a subjective editorial decision and it would have helped to
I LOVE David McCullough; as a matter of fact, I ran out, bought this book, and read it just because it had his name on it. However, The Greater Journey is not John Adams, Truman, or Mornings on Horseback. While McCullough excels at writing investigating the life of a man facing extraordinary circumstances (the topic of all three above books listed), he falters at writing about many men and women being influenced by Paris. The first third of the book is choppy, confusing, and riddled with short
I wasn't sure how much I would like this even though I know I like the way David McCullough and his team put together books. I was hesitant because the book focuses on many different individuals, all Americans residing in Paris from the late 1820s through 1900. Would I get adequate depth about each? The answer? Many individuals are mentioned and yet I was interested in so many because of the fascinating information provided. I did not get complete biographies of any, but the book does focus in
I really did feel like I was in Paris back then and the atmosphere was wonderful but the novel itself... I wish he would've gone more in dept on the people themselves... We get a little info about them then its on to the next section then sometimes they appear in a section about someone else. It felt a little dry and confusing after awhile.I don't mind lookin up different things from a book time to time, but not every other person in the book.For me this was a dud, David McCullough is a
We went to see McCullough 'launch' this latest offering. He's 78 now but still looks and sounds like God. (With apologies to Morgan Freeman and Alanis Morissette, who some people also think look like God). He spoke without a note for over an hour with only a rare misspeak, telling the wonderful stories that he unearthed about 19th Century Americans in Paris. Context: I was always a reader, but McCullough's Path Between the Seas is one of the handful of books that turned me into an addict. And, I
Magnifique! I should have known--McCullough is one of my favorite history writers, and he's writing about nineteenth-century Paris, one of my favorite places to read/think/dream about. This was even better than I thought it'd be. When I was young I always wanted to go to Paris--but not Francois Mitterand's Paris. No, I wanted Degas' Paris, Balzac's Paris, Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris. Well, this was an extended visit to that same Paris but through fresh eyes. Much of what was in this book I knew
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