Greek Revival America

"In 1826, as the United States celebrated its fiftieth birthday and bade farewell to the last of its founding fathers, a new American consciousness was being born - one characterized by optimism, self-assurance, and affluence. This forward-looking attitude was the very embodiment of the American Greek Revival, a movement that arose from a state of mind and a style of life, and one that was most publicly expressed through architecture." "In Greek Revival America, Roger Kennedy takes a long, loving look at the style of living and governing fostered by the American Greek Revival, a period that reached full flower in the 1820s and flourished until its spirit was crushed by the tragedy and pessimism of the Civil War. In this full-scale study of the era, the author uses architecture as a springboard to launch into the realm of social history, inviting the reader to examine the multifaceted panorama of forces that created the underpinnings of this style." "For example, the text shows why --