The greater journey

The Resource The greater journey
Label
The greater journey
Statement of responsibility
David McCullough
Title variation
Americans in Paris
Creator
Contributor
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
A special audio presentation of unabridged selections personally chosen by David McCullough. The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring-and until now, untold-story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work. Most had never left home, never experienced a different culture. None had any guarantee of success. That they achieved so much for themselves and their country profoundly altered American history. As David McCullough writes, "Not all pioneers went west." Writer Emma Willard, who founded the first women's college in America, was one of the intrepid bunch. Another was Charles Sumner, who enrolled at the Sorbonne where he saw black students with the same ambition he had, and when he returned home, he would become the most powerful, unyielding voice for abolition in the U.S. Senate. James Fenimore Cooper and Samuel F. B. Morse worked unrelentingly every day in Paris, Cooper writing and Morse painting what would be his masterpiece. From something he saw in France, Morse would also bring home his momentous idea for the telegraph. Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Henry James were all "discovering" Paris, marveling at the treasures in the Louvre, or out with the Sunday throngs strolling the city's boulevards and gardens. "At last I have come into a dreamland," wrote Harriet Beecher Stowe, seeking escape from the notoriety Uncle Tom's Cabin had brought her. The genius of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and painter George Healy would flourish in Paris, inspired by the examples of brilliant French masters, and by Paris itself. For this special audio presentation, McCullough has chosen a selection of portraits, excerpted in their entirety, that bring us into the lives of these remarkable men and women. A sweeping, fascinating story told with power and intimacy, The Greater Journey is itself a masterpiece
Accompanying matter
technical information on music
Cataloging source
Midwest
Dewey number
  • 920.009213/044361
  • B
Form of composition
not applicable
Format of music
not applicable
Literary text for sound recordings
other
PerformerNote
Read by Edward Herrmann
Target audience
adult
Transposition and arrangement
not applicable

Context

Context of The greater journey

Work of

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