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Jun 11, 2011

Grumpus rated it:

Dear Goodreads Community:

This is not easy for me to do and I am sorry to have to do this in this forum. I realize it is a bit cowardly and beg your understanding but you need to know it is not you, it’s me—well, maybe it is you.

Yes, over the last four years we’ve had some good times and I will cherish those books you’ve recommended through your insightful reviews and ratings. Those were wonderful times and I trusted you then. However, over the past year or so, it see More...

12 comments like (14 people liked it)

Oct 08, 2011

Clif rated it:

This is the story of Americans who traveled to Paris during the seven final decades of the 19th century. It's a history of the young years of individuals who ended up being famous and important Americans in their later mature years. Generally speaking, many of them were single, affluent individuals (mostly men) in their 20's intent on learning the artistic, scientific, and medical skills of the French who were perceived to be leaders in these fields.

I too spent some time traveling More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Steve rated it:

Historian David McCullough's 2011 nonfiction look at American's journeying to Paris in 19th Century arrived at my door last evening. I am anxious to read about Oliver Wendell Holmes and other Americans journey of discovery in the New World.
AZCentral.com: Great Q&A with the author in Arts and Entertainment section of the Arizona Republic today

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 29, 2011

Susanna marked it as to-read

A new McCullough! Squee!

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Diane rated it:

If I wasn't already married to the most wonderful man in the universe, David would be my second choice! This is a wonderful piece of non-fiction, peopled with fascinating characters and tidbits of French and American history. I gazed at Sargent's masterpiece The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit on a recent visit to the MFA with a new appreciation!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 11, 2011

Megan rated it:

So far, this might be one of my favorite works by McCullough. I can see constructing a graduate level course around it, involving the history and works discussed in the book. I feel that McCullough is at his best when he is looking at individual people (as evidenced by the success of Truman, John Adams, and Mornings on Horseback). I'm about 1/4 of the way through, so we'll see if my opinion changes. I doubt it.

Update (7/11/11): Done! I loved this book. Paris is such a magical loc More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 18, 2012

Deb rated it:

McCullough begins this historical account of Americans in Paris in about 1830 and follows Parisian history, and the Americans who experienced it, through the beginning of the 20th century.

While thousands of Americans were heading west in covered wagons to settle the North American continent, others chose to journey across the Atlantic in sailing ships to experience life in another country. What they found in Paris was a culture that was so different from the only one they knew tha More...

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Jan 18, 2012

Dee rated it:

I really liked this David McCullough history of Americans in Paris during the 1800's. I especially enjoyed the chapters covering the Franco-Prussian War, and the following Commune riots. Ihave heard recently that the World Wars of the 20th century were really begun by this war. If so, McCullough's reading of the insouciance with which the French began this war is really incredible. Unlike our recent debacle in Iraq, in this war, Louis Phillipe, the French leader realized the French were unpr More...

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Dec 06, 2011

Allison rated it:

I really really enjoyed this book. It's a long-ish read and I had to wait for it twice from the library because I couldn't finish it in one shot but David McCullough is well worth the wait. At first I was a little confused because you're just kind of thrown into this story of all of these people during a period in Paris' history and he just tells one (very interesting) story after another. By the end I understood that he wanted to convey several things. One is that these peoples' stories were on More...

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Dec 05, 2011

Andy rated it:

I 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 More...

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Nov 29, 2011

Bob rated it:

If you wanted to escape into a world of enchantment for Americans in the 19th century in Paris, this is your book. McCullough is already a favorite of mine, and this book just reconfirms my admiration for him. Yes, the 19th century - like most centuries - in reality wasn't all that great, but McCullough invites you to put on the rose-colored spectacles and walk with intelligent, artistic, enthusiastic young American women and men through the transformations in their lives that came from living More...

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Nov 11, 2011

Cheryl added it

The premise of this book sounded too rambling to pull off. It chronicles the experiences of Americans who traveled to Paris in the 19th century. They were a diverse lot: artists, writers, statesmen, medical students, and curiosities like Tom Thumb and Catlin's American Indians. Some reviewers thought there was too much rambling, and that McCullough did not in fact pull off the feat of unifying the stories of this ex-pat bunch, but I followed him wherever he went. I found all of the stories inter More...

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Oct 25, 2011

Cheryl rated it:

Between the years 1830 and 1900, Paris was considered the world's center of culture--art, architecture, literature, sculpture, and dance. It was also the center of science, especially medicine. Thousands of Americans travelled to Paris--not as tourists but to learn from, and be inspired by, its surroundings and people. I was skeptical about this book, but decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did! This meticulously researched book gives us an insider's view of Paris as seen through the eyes of More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 19, 2011

Spencer rated it:

David McCullough is probably my favorite author, so it pains me to only give this book 3 stars. In reality, it's probably 3.5 stars, and I would had rated it higher if I didn't have such high expectations for McCullough's books. (His books "The Great Bridge" and "Truman" are both in my top five favorite books ever). Having said all that, this was still a very enjoyable and incredibly readable book. The book shares many mini-biographies of Americans who spend time studying More...

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Sep 18, 2011

Sandie rated it:

I purchased David McCullough’s THE GREATER JOURNEY for my husband since he is an avid history buff and had enjoyed the writer’s previous books JOHN ADAMS and TRUMAN. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the book lying, unread while he consumed other books. When I asked about this he said, “I just can’t get into this one. It’s like there’s something missing. I decided to read the book myself…..can’t spend all that money on a book and not at least give it a try, right?

This previou More...

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Sep 03, 2011

Barbara rated it:

I am a great fan of David McCullough and have all of his books. This book is different from any of his others. While reading the book I felt as though I was sitting in a corner of his writing shed, listening to him talk about all the people who spent time in Paris during a certain time period. The book had the feel of an elderly gentleman reminiscing about times passed. Names and ideas flew by.

I had to read the book with a computer handy. He describes painters and their paintings, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2011

Alan rated it:

I have read many of David McCulllough books, and I have loved all of them. I found this book to be very disappointing, long and really a history of Paris in the 19th century. Mr. McCullough covers the Franco Prussian War, the French Commune and many other aspects of French history. Great for trivia buffs. Samuel FB Morse was a painter, before he invented the telegraph. He spent about a year painting in the Louvre. James Fennimore Cooper wrote many of his classic Adirondack books while living i More...

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Jul 30, 2011

Hood rated it:

Bound: Paris in Its Spring
Time-Traveling with Some Exemplary Americans
SunPost Weekly July 14, 2011 | John Hood
http://bit.ly/ptFnBt

Returning home from Paris, no matter where home happens to be, is never an easy thing. It’s 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 I’d left. But it wasn’t Paris, of the 1 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 20, 2011

Jay rated it:

This was a tough one to characterize. For awhile at the beginning, I was feeling that this was a book in search of a rationale. I've enjoyed McCullough's prior efforts from the bios (Roosevelt, Truman, Adams etc.) to the set pieces (the Panama Canal, the Johnstown Flood, the Brooklyn Bridge, etc.), but this was a different spin. Was it a 100 year history of a great city? From a band of foreigners' perspective? Was it a history of arts, letters, politics and medicine in the center of their a More...

1 comment like

Jul 02, 2011

Tony rated it:

McCullough, David. THE GREATER JOURNEY: Americans in Paris. (2011). ****.
McCullough, an eminent historian with a gift for writing popular histories, has here taken a look at Paris as a focal point in the lives of gifted, or soon-to-be-gifted Americans who travelled there in the 19th century to experience what the city would offer that would provide additional inspiration to their careers. He has mostly concentrated on the periods of about two decades each on each side of our American More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 29, 2011

Amy rated it:

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 shor More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Gwen rated it:

I like David McCullough's writing on American history. I've enjoyed his other books. I watched his publicity blitz for this one as he appeared on BookTV and Charlie Rose and other similar shows. By the time I read the book, I'd heard many of the stories in it, so it was a bit of a let-down. The book tells many stories of many Americans in the 19th century who came to Paris to study art or medicine or just to expand their cultural horizons. With so many narrative threads going, you don't really g More...

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Nov 22, 2011

Ross rated it:

I really have to stretch to give this book 3 stars. I have enjoyed many books by the author and this books, like the others, is very well written. My problem is the material covered was simply not of great interest to me.
About half is about the Americans who went to Paris in the Th century and half about Paris itself and non-Americans. The Americans included were overwhelmingly artists who had gone to Paris to study. While I like art a great deal, I am not really interested in the lives More...

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Aug 19, 2011

Marcia rated it:

THIS WAS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I HAVE READ IN A LONG TIME. I HAVE BEEN A FAN OF DAVID MC CULLOUGH FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS AND EACH BOOK HE WRITES HE SEEMS TO GET BETTER AND BETTER. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF ART,MEDICINE,ARCHITECT,POLITICS? DURING THE 19TH CENTURY THIS BOOK IS CERTAINING FOR YOU. IT TELLS US THE ADVENTURES OF OUR EARLY AMERICANS WILLING TO BRAVE THE UNKNOWN TO TRAVEL TO PARIS DURING THE YEARS 1830-1900. MEN AND WOMEN WHO FOR THE MOST PART ONLY HAD A DREAM, WHO HAD More...

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Jul 23, 2011

Michelle rated it:

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 kn More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2011

Lauren rated it:

A chronological series of interlocking biographies, McCullough shows us what it was like for Americans in Paris at different times during the period he covers. In particular, the reader gets a good feel for the state of medicine and medical studies and, of course, for the arts. Some visits, and visitors, were to make significant impacts. Charles Sumner for one was changed by his seeing well-dressed black men attending classes at the Sorbonne—something that shocked him at first and then chan More...

1 comment like

Jan 02, 2012

Sue rated it:

David McCullough tells the story of how 19th-century Americans drew inspiration and learning from the highly developed cultural life of Paris. This is not a history of France, nor of the US, but it tells much about a young country with as yet few traditions. And it certainly reminds us of how much the young America felt drawn to its ally in the American Revolution, while England still felt like an adversary.

The book tells first the story of curious and adventuresome young Americans More...

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Aug 04, 2011

Kathy rated it:

Many books have been written about Americans in Paris in the 20th century, but David McCullough turns his analytical eye on previous generations of Americans who traveled to and lived in Paris in the 19th Century. Starting in the 1830's and ending in 1901, The Greater Journey covers diverse compilation of Americans who called Paris home. The first group includes Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., James Fennimore Cooper, Charles Sumner, Samuel Morse and Elizabeth Blackwell and the later group contained More...

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Dec 05, 2011

Louise rated it:

David McCullough proves again that he knows how to tell a good story. I'm not a fan of history but this author captures the essence of many creative, intellectual Americans choosing to spend considerable time in the dynamic city, Paris, as it transformed into the City of Lights.

During the 1800's so much happens from the civil war in America to the building of the Eiffel Tower for the World's Exposition in 1889 and McCullough doesn't miss anything. Every chapter is full of rich connect More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Timothy rated it:

I love this book in the way that you love someone's voice; you trust and find pleasure in it always. That voice is David McCullough’s, the narrator of Ken Burn's The Civil War and the author of several big popular histories, starting back with his books on the Johnstown Flood and the Brooklyn Bridge, up to the massive tomes on Truman and John Adams. As I practicing middlebrow, I’ve read all of them. This is my favorite. When I read this informal history of Americans in Paris I hear his voice More...

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