The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

Every time David McCullough puts his fingers to the typewriter that he uses to write with, he seems to transform our understanding of the topic he is studying. Whether it was President Harry Truman or for me Mornings on Horseback, I have walked away from his books with an enlightened feel for the topic that I have only been able to achieve with very few authors. James Michener is one who comes to mind immediately.With this book, The Greater Journey, the author has now thoroughly engaged the reader with a topic seldom written about but very deserving of study. It is only natural that we as Americans feel we live in a self centered world; after all we have 2 vast oceans that have protected our shores from invasion for several centuries, and probably will for several more. It simply does not occur to us that since our beginnings, many Americans have chosen to spend considerable time abroad, and in some cases decades of their lives.During the 1800's and specifically from 1830 until 1900, there was a wave of intellectual migration that headed not west to America, but east to Paris, France from America. Keep in mind that we now sit in a country that is preeminent in the world, financially, intellectually, and probably culturally as well. Back then, we were just forming as a nation. The Indian wars were still in process, and the Civil War would also take place, which became the second re-creation of the United States. McCullough is totally aware of this comparison and makes wise use of it throughout this 456 page book composed of 14 distinct chapters separated into 3 parts, followed by a wonderful epilogue, and a very useful bibliography. The author understands history, and is always mindful of the relative positions of different nations. During this period we were not yet the top dog that we were to become after World War I. Europe still controlled the world's greatest universities and they were already centuries old.If you are going to read this book in a physical format as opposed to the Kindle digital version, you are in for a treat because the paper chosen is exquisite, and the font selection is superb. If you are an older reader as I am, you will appreciate the time that was taken to design the book appropriately for readers that still relish a physically well made book, and that's what we have here.This is the story of a 70 year period in the history of Paris, and the scores of Americans who occupied it, lived there, and helped participate in the transformation of what is called the city of light. It is also the story of scores of for want of a better word can be called expatriate Americans, although many of them did return to their native United States at different times.McCullough is one of the few authors who truly captures the essence of an environment and then proceeds to envelop it with a reality that absorbs and perhaps even demands our attention as readers. His description of the relationship between James Fennimore Cooper and Samuel F.B. Morse and their joy in living in this magnificent city and the effects it had on their work will remain in the reader's soul for many years after the book is put back on the shelf. When Morse painted his masterpiece, it was done in Paris, and perhaps after reading this book, one realizes it could only have been done in Paris.The city of lights already had vast boulevards, and extraordinary parks decades before the United States designed them. Indeed, New York City's Central Park which would be created later in the century would take much from Paris, and other European cities. The Americans who would go to Paris and spend years there would recall later after returning to the United States the joy of the parks, the energy of the city itself and the sheer unequalled cultural delights that embodied Paris. Visually we can still see much of this in the work of the Impressionist School of painting.I found the author's handling of Mary Cassatt, who was a Philadelphia born daughter of American socialites who went on to be an illustrious painter as a principal part of the Impressionist school, to be particularly well done. Her relationship to Edgar Degas the renowned painter of the ballet and horses, as well as landscaping is thoroughly chronicled in the book. McCullough's ability to weave life into life, with Paris as the focal point constantly holding the book together in such a way that the reader feels compelled to continue to read, not pausing to eat is what in the end keeps the author at the pinnacle of his profession today.It is obvious that this book was a labor of love for the author. It comes shining through with the admiration that McCullough holds for both Oliver Wendell Homes the American medical student in Paris, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, a name we all recognize. He even takes the time to take us through the time that Mark Twain spent in this wonderful city.Not only was Paris transformed by the Americans that occupied it during this century, but Paris itself went through extraordinary changes and development. Kings re-invented the city several times during this century. Vast numbers of poor were displaced and sent to the country. It was invaded during this period as well. Later vast tree lined streets and boulevards would be created that became the envy of Europe. The Louvre would be increased in size enormously in an attempt to make it the most important museum on the entire continent, and France would succeed in this effort.McCullough intertwines the story of Paris, its growth, its impact on the Americans and what the Americans brought back to America as a result, into a book in such an imaginative way that the reader will find himself revisiting this book from time to time. In the end the book is riveting, and this is a phrase I find myself continuing to use every time I pick up a book written by this author.Many lives are captured in this masterpiece. They include George Healy the portrait painter, Nathaniel Hawthorne whose writings still continue to occupy many a college freshman's late nights, and future American Senator Charles Sumner who would have his views on slavery refined while living in Paris. Indeed he became an abolitionist as a result of his Parisian experience.CONCLUSION:Prior to reading The Greater Journey, I believed I had a good understanding of 19th century Paris. Having studied the art of that period, going to the Louvre, and sitting in on lectures dealing with Paris in the 1800's, I looked forward to seeing what this author could add to the story. I did not expect what I got, which was to have him blow away my understanding and replace it with something that came alive and stood on many different legs of understanding, but isn't that what great writing can do. It can simply make things come alive again. You feel as though you are there, and McCullough puts us right there in the thick of the action.Although it is not the whole story, if you have any interest at all in understanding the transformative art period that was the Impressionist movement it is vividly captured here in the lives of Augustus Saint-Gaudens with John Singer Sargent, and Mary Cassatt. David McCullough is already an acclaimed author with two Pulitzers and two national Book Awards, and it looks like with this book, he's got another Pulitzer coming down the pike. Thank you for reading this review.Richard C. Stoyeck

The author keeps you engaged throughout creating a narrative through correspondence of prominent historical figures . I have learned much about persons familiar in name.

"Not all pioneers went west," ends the first chapter in David McCullough's newest book, "The Greater Journey".Paris has long captivated the hearts and minds of late 20th and 21st century Americans. The Paris that first pops into mind for most, though, is that of Hemingway's "Moveable Feast". The Jazz Age. The Paris of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Of late night cocktails in sleepy cafe corners. Of writers and painters with oversized egos, and a Falstaffian disposition towards work, a self-assured gluttony. This much-adored Paris is the underground dream-world of Owen Wilson's character in Woody Allen's newest film, "A Midnight in Paris".McCullough, however, in "The Greater Journey", chooses to tell the story of an earlier generation of American immigrants. Those of a time when ambitious Americans, growing up in the infant stages of their native country, had to look east to the City of Lights for continuing education and career advancement opportunities.The period from 1830-1900 was a time before the United States had established itself as the center of higher learning, and the place that immigrants from all over the world travelled to in search of knowledge. For Oliver Wendell Holmes, Samuel Morse, James Fenimore Cooper, John Singer Sargent, and all the characters in "The Greater Journey", Paris was that city.McCullough's characters, because of the earnestness of their endeavors, are far more the heroic protagonists then those that epitomized later generations. They were not the savant flaneur that Hemingway was. They were not like Charlie, the autobiographical protagonist in Fitzgerald's 1931 short story "Babylon Revisited", who spent his immigrant days in Paris before the 1929 stock market crash making "nothing out of something" by "catering to vice and waste on an utterly childish scale.""The Greater Journey's" oldest heroes, for one, were men that knew and admired the Marquis de Lafayette, friend to Washington and Jefferson, who embodied much of the principles that the Founding Fathers had used to sustain them in their fight for freedom.The common thread of every one of the east-going pioneers in "The Greater Journey" are that they were all tireless workers. They were men and women that worked to make a difference. They worked to live the life they had envisioned for themselves. Work, they knew, not chance, not anything else, was their only passport to their personal hopes, duties, and aspirations.Wendell Holmes, one of "the Medicals" who had come to Paris in search of the most advanced medical training available in the world at the time, wrote to his father of the experience, "I have never been so busy in my life...The lessons are ringing aloud through all the great hospitals. The students from all lands are gathered..."James Jackson Jr., a peer of Holmes', is characterized by his father as a man who "rejoiced openly when he made an acquisition in knowledge." One can imagine a young man or woman from Beirut or Bucharest in 2011, walking down the halls of Harvard, its ceilings stretching skyward, the whole place and time overwhelming them with the very feeling that Holmes and Jackson Jr. trumpeted in their letters centuries ago: that they are part of something, at a center of learning, a place where knowledge, the opportunity to learn, to work, to discover something entirely new is readily available for those willing and able to put forth the effort.McCullough, through his love of history and his belief in the transformative power of books and knowledge, has done in "The Greater Journey" what he has done so many times before: made history come alive. McCullough, through this book, has hopefully spurred the American psyche, and awoken it to a time in its own history that had temporarily lost the allure it deserves, obscured as it was underneath the white, glitzy ballroom lights of Hemingway and Fitzgerald's Roaring 20's. McCullough's world is no Babylon. It has more staying power.McCullough in this book proves that the American immigrants of the 19th century simply needed an author- dedicated to the same principles as they- to renew modern-day reader's focus on their forbearers grand accomplishments. In this book, McCullough has done as right by these American pioneers of the 19th century, as they by him.

This is a beautifully written and interesting narrative, concerning those Americans who sailed or came by steamer ships from New York and other eastern seaboard ports and as far south as Louisiana to France. Some arrived at Le Havre, others at Calais and Boulogne, after which they faced an onward 24 hour journey to Paris by a diligence. It certainly raises the question - what drove these Americans to undertake such a potentially dangerous crossing of the Atlantic, not necessarily speaking any French and having, in most cases, limited financial resources? David McCullough's book spans the period 1830 to 1900, a period known as the Belle Époque, meaning the Beautiful Epoch. Throughout this period, Paris was the acknowledged hub from the standpoint of technical and artistic knowledge and accomplishment and it was this that drew Americans from the New back to the Old World. Whilst Paris was an exciting, perhaps romantic city, until 1853 it was nonetheless a Medieval cesspit. The narrative follows the fortunes of a number of talented American (and French) individuals, some of whom will be well known, others not but there are plenty of surprises as their respective life-stories unfold. Many of the people David McCullough introduces would experience the July Revolution, culminating in the overthrow of King Charles X, equally, some remained in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Paris. Not that it was in question but this is a further example of David McCullough's skill at historical narrative. It is an enjoyable, informative book. A highly recommended read.

Simply one of the most enjoyable books I have read for a long time. I particularly loved how the author combined the stories of artists with the turbulent history of (mainly) nineteenth century Paris. But not only artists, medical students, inventors, showmen, diplomats, forward thinkers and thought changers, always with Paris as an active participant, as a concept, as a way of life and as a tangible force shaping our world.I have to thank Amazon very much for recommending The Greater Journey as one of their daily suggestions. I was dubious about the subtitle “Americans in Paris“ but I took a chance, it was a reasonable price and I love most things Parisian. I even hesitated to start readIng the book, I have so many other books I “need“ to read. I thought I would just read a few pages and see how it was (this is me - not the world's authority - hesitating to read an author that I later discover is a double Pulitzer Prize winner - sorry).I will tell you how it was for me, it was engrossing, enthralling and entirely wonderful.

What is not to like? Most interesting book on the lives of some unknown and many more well known Americans, who came to Europe to improve their given work in the 1890s. Artists, writers, and doctors for the most part. They all were able to improve their lives by what they learnt and saw of the ''old" Continent, often returning to America and becoming more professional and important in their given jobs. Some remained in Europe for years. Plus a great deal of history of Paris during that century. It was the centre for culture but also upheavals and war as happens in every century. For anyone interested in History this book is a gold mine of information on every page.

We had this book in paperback & then bought it on Kindle so we would always be able to read it when the mood took us. It's fascinating. This latest purchase was actually a present for a friend (we'd been told that was possible so took the opportunity). We've enthused about this book to several people. It presents the history of Paris through the eyes of expat Americans over time. It's a very interesting way to present the topics covered.

I thought this book was beautiful. I also thought this book was inspiring. To read about so many Americans who picked up and sailed to France to enrich their lives, advance their learning, and soak up the knowledge, the culture, the atmosphere, and the beauty of the world's centre for arts, science, and medicine, was to be transported to another era and to experience Paris as it was in the 19th century. This book made me want to take that trip myself; to walk down the Paris streets, to experience her gardens, her museums, her light, her beauty, and her mystery. "The Greater Journey" is a sweeping history of Paris in the 19th century, yet it is also the story of many Americans who came there first to learn and eventually to give over in return. For them it was truly "the greater journey," but it is also for us too, a journey through history, through art, through medicine,and through the passion of the human soul. It is such a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.