Washington
The Making of the American Capital

Washington, D.C., was from the beginning a capital with a difference. Where older capitals had been situated in pre-existing centers of population and commerce, Washington was an idea before it was a city; it was planned, set into place, and all but willed into being. Fergus Bordewich provides in hi......more

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......more

Few capital cities are designed. Most grow up haphazardly and without any kind of design or plan. Government tends to locate in the biggest cities, or the most convenient, or those at the centre of trade. Sometimes one city embodies all of these. Sometimes capitals are relocated entirely; sometimes......more

From the title, this book sounds like something someone would have to be dragged into reading. Surprisingly, it is absorbing and even leaves you wanting to know even more (which is one of my standards about how good is a non fiction book). After reading Bordewich's account of how Washington ever bec......more

Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it. What is amazing to me is that there are tons of people in Washington who DO know history and still repeat it anyway. The facts of how own revered capital came to be seem lost to the sands of time, but not with this book. Political back room deals......more