A Clearing In The Distance

Frederick Law Olmsted was both ruthlessly pragmatic and a visionary. To create Central Park, he managed thousands of employees who moved millions of cubic yards of stone and earth and planted over 300,000 trees and shrubs. In laying it out, "we determined to think of no results to be realized in less than forty years," he told his son, Rick.

To this day, Olmsted's ideas about people, nature, and society are expressed across the nation -- above all, in his parks, so essential to the civilized life of our cities. Witold Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make this book an intellectual adventure.

• 480 pages
• 6.13 x 1.4 x 9.25 inches