Early American Architecture: From the First Colonial Settlements to the National Period (Dover Architecture) [Paperback]

Hugh Morrison (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dover Architecture | Publication Date: January 17, 2011

Hailed as "a model of scholarship" by the Saturday Review, this comprehensive survey of domestic and public architecture ranges from early settlers' primitive cabins to Greek Revival mansions of the early 1800s. Nearly 500 illustrations complement the text, praised by The New York Times as "entertaining, vigorous, and clearly written."

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (January 17, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486254925
• ISBN-13: 978-0486254920
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #361,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I've seen on this topic!, December 16, 2003

By 

Philip Liggett (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Early American Architecture: From the First Colonial Settlements to the National Period (Dover Architecture) (Paperback)

I picked up this book inexpensively, secondhand, to use as a reference because it has a lot of very good photos and floor plans. But I glanced at the first page and was hooked. It's an incredibly well-written, well-balanced, unbiased, well-organized, and informed view of colonial architecture extant in the U.S. in the mid-20th century, when the book was written.

Morrison tells in the introduction that his goal was to write a comprehensive history of the topic. And he's done a stellar job. It's the first such book I've seen that gives significant treatment not only of the Spanish Southwest (with separate chapters on each of those states and what distinguishes each state's architecture from that of the other S.W. states) but also devotes a significant portion of its pages to French Colonial architecture, not just of New Orleans, but also of the entire French Mississippi Valley and parts of the Gulf Coast.

A bit about the composition of the book: Morrison devotes entire sections of chapters or entire chapters themselves to the background of a particular style (e.g, Dutch colonial in the New York area), but then gives a major portion of the text over to descriptions of prime examples of the styles he's just described. Several houses and public buildings are discussed in each section, almost always with photos, often with floor plans and interior shots.

Morrison's unbiased and comprehensive coverage of a very wide-ranging subject is extremely well done, with the exception of just one rather amusing bit of editorializing: he doesn't seem to like dormers, or at least seems to prefer 17th century gables to dormers. Other than that funny (and seldom-appearing) idiosyncrasy, the book is a wonderful educational tool and reference book for the layperson. The fact that this book was originally published more than 50 years ago and is still in print is an amazing testement to the fact that it's so well written.