A Clearing in the Distance

Frederich Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century

By: Witold Rybczynski

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Paperback | 5 July 2000

At a Glance

Paperback
480 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.59 x 13.97 x 3.18

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In a brilliant collaboration between writer and subject, Witold Rybczynski, the bestselling author of Now I Sit Me Down, illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history.

We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes—among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, and Boston's Back Bay Fens. But Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as the executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross.

Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make his book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure.

Industry Reviews

Stanley Weintraub The Wall Street Journal Mr. Rybczynski meshes what is close to a history of urban landscape architecture in America in the nineteenth century with a life of Olmsted. By doing so, he has produced a biography that communicates, with feeling, the ups and downs of Olmsted's career as well as of the profession he helped to invent....A book that defines and evokes Olmsted as an American original. Suzannah Lessard The New York Times Book Review Excellent...thorough and respectful, yet easeful in a way that is reminiscent of Olmsted himself.

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Foreword
Schemes
""Tough as nails""
Frederick goes to school
Hartford
""I have no objection""
New York
A year before the mast
Friends
Farming
More farming
A walking tour in the old countryJostling and Being Jostled
Mr. Downing's magazine
Olmsted falls in love and finishes his book
Charley Brace intervenes
Yeoman
A traveling companion
The Texas settlers
Yeoman makes a decision
""Much the best Mag. in the world""
AbroadHitting Heads
A change in fortune

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

A Clearing in the Distance

Frederich Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

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