Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to America's Historic Neighborhoods and Museum Houses: The Western States

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This book is totally unique, I have never seen another guide like it. The author does not just focus on the big cities she covers smaller cities as well and in depth. The book covers well known historic neighborhoods in the Western states, with highly informative text. I found the book hard to put down. Being from the Houston area I was impressed with how well the author had researched Houston's best neighborhoods and I also appreciated the photographs of homes from each neighborhood, it gave the reader a visual and a feel for the houses in the neighborhood, I really cannot say enough good things about this book, it even maps the neighborhoods and shows the reader where they can find the museum homes. It truly is a field guide in the best sence and I highly recommend it, I have been waiting for the Eastern states for several years now, I hope that it gets done, because if it is half as good as this book I will be the first to buy it.

A beautifully done baedeker of historic information on settlement patterns and architecture of the American West. As in their other books, Lee and McAlester weave local historiography with the creation of venacular architecture into entertaining narrative.

There are two apparent shortcomings: a relative dearth of good photos--for a quasi-reference work, there is simply not enough visual stimulation, and a highly cryptic reference system wherein the photo captions are not cross referenced properly with the notes. Otherwise, this is a book to be valued by those with an interest in housing and architecture.