In travel narratives, in correspondence, in diaries, and even in fiction, travelers to Philadelphia have bequeathed to us a bounty of "as many Philadelphias as there are observers." Philip Stevick's collection of outsiders' observations captures what the visitors thought they saw and how it felt to have engaged the life of the city. Some travelers visited the classic destinations of earlier times, such as the great waterworks complex; others reacted generally to the tone and temper of the city. Together, these accounts fall into patterns that often convey a mythic reading of the city, as a place of uncommon order and symmetry, for example, or a place of great torpor and dullness, or a city extraordinary for the way in which elements of wilderness interpenetrate the metropolitan core.
Stevick finds that the city has inscribed itself on the imaginations of two centuries of visitors in ways that are often compelling but unpredictable, a parallel city to the place on the map and the street under foot, a city of the mind, an imagined Philadelphia.
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"Shrewd, detailed, and remarkably thoughtful, the best cultural meditation on Philadelphia in many years."—Carlin Romano
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By Philip Stevick
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This review is from: Imagining Philadelphia: Travelers' Views of the City from 1800 to the Present (Hardcover)
This book was very valuable when I was researching my novel, "A Daughter Of Liberty," by Allan Cole & Chris Bunch.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Cities are incomprehensible. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
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United States, New York, Independence Hall, Fairmount Waterworks, State House, Eastern State Penitentiary, Girard College, Liberty Bell, Fairmount Park, Wistar Parties, Assembly Room, Caroline Gilman, Courtesy of Urban Archives, Niagara Falls, Temple University, William Penn, Athens of America, Basil Hall, Beatrice Webb, Chestnut Hill, Jersey City, Philadelphia Bulletin, Schuylkill River, Wissahickon Creek, Cherry Hill New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Cities are incomprehensible. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
intellectual tone Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New York, Independence Hall, Fairmount Waterworks, State House, Eastern State Penitentiary, Girard College, Liberty Bell, Fairmount Park, Wistar Parties, Assembly Room, Caroline Gilman, Courtesy of Urban Archives, Niagara Falls, Temple University, William Penn, Athens of America, Basil Hall, Beatrice Webb, Chestnut Hill, Jersey City, Philadelphia Bulletin, Schuylkill River, Wissahickon Creek, Cherry Hill New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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This book cites 94
books:
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- The American Scene (Penguin Classics) by Henry James on 5 pages
- The American Scene (United States Local History Ser, No Bcl1) by James Henry on 5 pages
- The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson on 4 pages
- Travels In North America (3 Volumes) by Basil Hall on 4 pages
- American Notes (Konemann Classics) by Charles Dickens on 4 pages
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