Customer Reviews

American Cities: Historic Maps And Views

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After enjoying this informative and graphically rich tome, I feel a better title for it might be "Nine American Cities: A Visual History."

The cities highlighted in this book are Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, St Louis, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Containing historical maps and illustrations accompanied by essays explaining historic and narrative context, "American Cities" surprises and delights by revealing how these cities used to be and developed into the cities we know now. The enjoyment and relevance increases when the city under exploration happens to be one in which one lives. As I have lived in two of the nine cities and am familiar with another, I found this book especially engaging, although residence in one of the nine cities need not be a requirement to enjoy this beautifully formatted book. The two editors are dealers in antique maps and books, and their love of their work shows in "American Cities".

This is a beautiful book. The maps and illustrations are magnificently reproduced with the superb quality I have come to expect from Italian printers. Unfortunately, the book's usefulness is limited by the text, set in an almost unreadable typeface. Whoever designed this book obviously does not read much. It's a pity. The authors had a lot to say, but it takes a major effort to read it.

As a fan of historic cartography, this is a "must have" book to own.