Description
Book SynopsisIn 1910 John Merven Carrère, a Paris-trained American architect, wrote, “Learning from Paris made Washington outstanding among American cities.” The five essays in Paris on the Potomac explore aspects of this influence on the artistic and architectural environment of Washington, D.C.,
Trade Review“These essays are well researched, have ample footnotes, and are accompanied by many helpful black-and-white illustrations.” * CHOICE *
“(
Paris on the Potomac) is another consistently engaging and insightful collection of essays published as part of the Perspectives on the Art and Architectural History of the United States Capitol series.… As a whole, the collection underlies the importance of French-American amity and offers Washington, D.C.—as much a European city as an American one—as irrefutable evidence that space and place are occupied by politics and ideology as much as they are by people.” * The Journal of Southern History *
“(
Paris on the Potomac) responds to the question of how French architecture and decoration have affected the building of our nation’s capital from the days when George Washington and Pierre L’Enfant laid out a plan for the city’s design. For the reader who travels next to Washington, D.C., the quest to sight those French influences in city planning, architecture, and decoration will be inevitable.” * The French Review *
”Beautifully produced, (
Paris on the Potomac) is presumably offered as much to lovers of Washington, DC, as to a professional readership. Can it help general readers to ‘think historically’? Yes! The reader is immediately in good hands in the first essay.… Available in paperback for twenty-five dollars, this
is a book I would buy for friends and family.” * Journal of the Early American Republic *
