<![CDATA[Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision of Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army]]>

false <![CDATA[Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision of Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army]]>

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The Riveting Story of the Federal City and the Men Who Built It In 1814, British troops invaded Washington, consuming President Madison’s hastily abandoned dinner before setting his home and the rest of the city ablaze. The White House still bears scorch and soot marks on its foundation stones. It was only after this British lesson in “hard war,” designed to terrorize, that Americans overcame their resistance to the idea of Washington as the nation’s capital and embraced it as a symbol of American might and unity. The dramatic story of how the capital rose from a wilderness is a vital chapter in American history, filled with intrigue and outsized characters–from George Washington to Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the eccentric, passionate, difficult architect who fell in love with his adopted country. This Frenchman–both inspired by the American cause of liberty and wounded while defending it–first endeared himself to then General Washington with a sketch drawn at Valley Forge. Designing buildings, parades, medals, and coins, L’Enfant became the creator of a new American aesthetic, but the early tastemaker had ambition and pride to match his talent. Self-serving and incapable of compromise, he was consumed with his artistic dream of the Federal City, eventually alienating even the president, his onetime champion. Washington struggled to balance L’Enfant’s enthusiasm for his brilliant design with the strident opposition of fiscal conservatives such as Thomas Jefferson, whose counsel eventually led to L’Enfant’s dismissal. The friendships, rivalries, and conflicting ideologies of the principals in this drama–as revealed in their deceptively genteel correspondence and other historical sources–mirror the struggles of a fledgling nation to form a kind of government the world had not yet known. In these pages, as in Last Train to Paradise and Meet You in Hell, master storyteller Les Standiford once again tells a compelling, uniquely American story of hubris and achievement, with a man of epic ambition at its center. Utterly absorbing and scrupulously researched, Washington Burning offers a fresh perspective on the birth of not just a city, but a nation.

2877923

2008

Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision of Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army

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The author does a nice job at the beginning of tying the idea of the terrorism of 9/11 to the burning of Washin...more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Nov 01 22:33:48 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 01 22:34:09 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sat Oct 24 07:52:35 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 14 07:41:54 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 24 07:52:35 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Sep 04 18:30:38 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 11:58:55 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Jul 16 06:09:18 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 16 06:09:20 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jul 06 21:49:24 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 21:49:24 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Jun 18 09:47:51 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 09:47:51 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat May 30 07:54:55 -0700 2009 Sat May 30 07:54:55 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu May 28 12:12:15 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 12:12:15 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sun Apr 19 01:17:57 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 01:17:57 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Apr 05 10:08:28 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 10:08:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Mar 20 15:06:10 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 20 15:06:10 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jan 25 20:23:16 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 20:23:16 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Tue Jan 20 13:24:53 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 13:24:53 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Dec 28 11:06:22 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 11:06:22 -0800 2008