Reviews for Washington: The Making of the American Capital

The average rating for Washington: The Making of the American Capital based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-10-16 00:00:00 Carl Beltz Jr The idea of this book is terrific, and about 70% of the follow through works very well. I've always been somewhat fascinated by city planning and living in DC for the past 14 years, I really looked forward to hearing the straight dope on how DC came to be. The facts surrounding the political wrangling on choosing the site of the capital was very interesting, as was what little there was of the actual laying out and constructing of the city itself. But Bordewich really didn't go deeply enough into the actual building of the city. He spends so much time on Philadelphia that there were times I questioned the title of the book. And while he shines a much needed light on the part that slaves and African-Americans played in DC's birth, he might have put more focus on it than the book really warranted. Still, it's amazing to think of the accomplishment of carving this great city out of the swampy backwaters of the Potomac valley, and Bordewich is to be commended for bringing much of that struggle to life.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-04-07 00:00:00 Janine Thompson The title should have been "Washington: A book filled with tangents and goes out of the way to tell you the founding fathers were forced to use slave labor to build the city, which almost didn't get built, but we're going to spend a lot of time telling you that they used slaves to build the city and not so much time about the nitty-gritty politics that went on behind the scenes of getting the city built, because they used slaves; if you want more substance behind how Washington, D.C. was built, read John Adams by David McCullough--he goes into more detail." Maybe two stars is a little too brutal, but I found that Bordewich went in way too many directions in this book. (All though I found the bit on yellow fever in Philadelphia interesting; however, that belongs in a book on Philadelphia, not Washington, D.C.)