The GreaterJourney
by David McCullough
David McCullough recounts the adventures of a century of Americans in Paris. In the 1820’s, Americans came for the world’s best medical training ands the world’s best art training. At the century’s end, they came for the fashion and for the food, for glittering nights, and for the world’s best art training. In between, McCullough reconstructs the fascinating, forgotten story of the American Ambassador who determined that it was his duty to remain at his post through the siege of 1870 and the Commune and whose rediscovered diary provides vivid insights into a time whose brief turbulence seemed likely to continue forever.