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Washington: The Making of the American Capital
by: Fergus Bordewich

List Price: $27.95

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 975.301
EAN: 9780060842383
ISBN: 0060842385
Label: Amistad
Manufacturer: Amistad
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: May 01, 2008
Publisher: Amistad
Release Date: May 06, 2008
Studio: Amistad
Sales Rank: 63539

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:

Washington, D.C., is home to the most influential power brokers in the world. But how did we come to call D.C.—a place one contemporary observer called a mere swamp "producing nothing except myriads of toads and frogs (of enormous size)," a district that was strategically indefensible, captive to the politics of slavery, and a target of unbridled land speculation—our nation's capital? In Washington, acclaimed and award-winning author Fergus M. Bordewich turns his eye to the backroom deal making and shifting alliances between our Founding Fathers and in doing so pulls back the curtain on the lives of slaves who actually built the city. The answers revealed in this eye-opening book are not only surprising and exciting but also illuminate a story of unexpected triumph over a multitude of political and financial obstacles, including fraudulent real estate speculation, overextended financiers, and management more apt for a "banana republic" than an emerging world power.

In this page-turning work that reveals the hidden and somewhat unsavory side of the nation's beginnings, Bordewich, once again, brings his novelist's sensibility to a little-known chapter in American history.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- An Engaging History of the Nation's Capital
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book about the history of our nation's capital and why it came to be located where it is. Bordewich explains how the location of the capital was closely tied to the importance of slavery in the South. He describes the details of the negotiations in Congress and how ultimately, to the disappointment of Philadelphia and other contestants, a compromise tying the assumption of debts from the Revolution to the location of the capital placed it where it is today.
But the location was tenuous from the beginning as George Washington's vision of a grand capital was fraught with all kinds of problems -including the involvement of land speculators - that would keep the capital from maturing for many years to come.

Bordewich reveals the role that slave ... Read More

Rating:

- Really Let Dow
Allow me firstly to say I went in initially with high expectations for this book. The history of Washington, D.C. had been an area that I knew very little about and was greatly excited when I finally found a book about this on the shelves of my local bookstore. But, how my expectations have changed after reading this book.
Bordewich gives the reader a cast of characters that otherwise have been regulated to the dustiest pages of history, and whose contributions are indeed worthy of note.
The problem that Bordewich forces his readers to endure is his insistence of turning several chapters into abolitionist minutia history. Where one chapter of anti-slavery background filled the reader with all they really needed to know about the people and abolitionist history, Bordewich insists on ... Read More

Rating:

- Scholarly Backstory
This well written, easily read account of the decade long saga that is the history of Washington, D.C.'s creation as our national capital brings a bit of scholarly background of the Founding era to a general readership. The political, personal, international, financial, religious, medical, national security, and geographical details that each came to play in the selection and completion of this project are clearly explained. Whether famous or infamous, the players are presented fairly, but without omission of their very human motives and behaviors. Slavery is presented just as it was in this new Republican land-of-the-free: protected by the Constitution and a powerful force when expressed in the Federal Ratio. The quoted sentiments of many contemporaries bring the text an enjoyable contemporaneous ... Read More

Rating:

- Washington The Making of An American Capital
If there is truth in advertising this book should be entitled Washington The Making of an American Capital & A History of Slavery in the United States 1789 - 1801. In an attempt to show the part that African - Americans played in the founding of he nation's capital he spent half of the book talking about the plight of free blacks and slaves in the middle atlantic states during the first dozen years of his country's history. While the book is a very good read it gets tiresome in points and goes overboard in the name of "political correctness"

Rating:

- Buy this book
This is simply a superb book. Extremely well told, rich with historical texture, with detail new even to those who "already know" this story, and especially fascinating to anyone who works in commercial real estate or finance, particularly those of us in DC.

To the real estate player, this is a development case study that will astound, amaze, and amuse on almost every page. To the financier in any industry, it will remind you our business never really changes.

Buy the book, you will find it hard to put down.

Books : Washington: The Making of the American Capital