David McCullough
Hardcover | Pages: 558 pages Rating: 3.91 | 17507 Users | 2133 Reviews
Itemize Books In Pursuance Of 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) |
Explanation In Favor Of 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.
Specify Out Of Books The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
| Title | : | The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris |
| Author | : | David McCullough |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special 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 Out Of Books The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
Ratings: 3.91 From 17507 Users | 2133 ReviewsJudgment Out Of Books The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
McCullough's work is always excellent, though I would argue the author is at his best when he focuses on one person rather than a plethora of figures, which is the reason I deducted a star.Just as its subtitle says, The Greater Journey recounts the stories of many famous Americans who went to Paris. Whether to learn, travel, absorb culture, or hone skills, all of these now-impressive voyagers have interesting tales of their own. McCullough breathes great life into each of these people, and alsoI can see how, in all the wild Sturm und Drang of this modern world, you just might get in the mood for a couple of peaceful evenings in the parlor listening to a softly ticking clock and a mild, grandfatherly-type person amble gently through his stock of anecdotes. And if you happen to like your anecdotes very gentle and discursive indeed, and youve a yen to untangle bits about some pretty interesting Americans in Paris between 1830 and 1900 from the anecdote skein, then this is the book for
While the book made enjoyable reading and I learned a lot, the theme of Americans in Paris over decades wasn't strong enough to hold the book together very tightly. Our discussion group agreed that the section on the medical students is the strongest, since it covers several people who formed a cohesive community and paints a vivid picture of the state of medical science before antibiotics and anesthesia. The section about the diplomat Elihu Washburne also holds together well since it coalesces
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
Bound: Paris in Its SpringTime-Traveling with Some Exemplary AmericansSunPost Weekly July 14, 2011 | John Hoodhttp://bit.ly/ptFnBtReturning home from Paris, no matter where home happens to be, is never an easy thing. Its especially difficult to do after a hundred year trip. So it was with some discomfort and deep reluctance that, after more than a century away, I came back to Miami last week. Yes, it was the same hometown that Id left. But it wasnt Paris, of the 19th century or otherwise. And
The Greater Journey is an inspiring narrative of the prominent Americans who traveled to Paris from the early 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It was written by the masterful writer David McCullough. I love his books and this is definitely among them.It told the story of Samuel Morse who invented the telegraph but was also a painter. He painted the exceptional Gallery of the Louvre. He was friends with the writer James Fenimore Cooper. George Sumner enrolled in the Sorbonne because he
The Greater Journey is a book that in less capable hands than David McCulloughs would have been deadly dull. However, in his hands it is a wonderful narrative history that manages to be about many things, and all at the same time.This text is about the American artists, diplomats, writers, doctors, etc. who populated Paris France during the 19th century. Beginning with the early 1800s and concluding essentially at the dawn of the 1900s McCullough gives us a readable and very fascinating history
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