From the Ground Up

Rome is not one city but many, each with its own history unfolding from a different center. Beginning with the very shaping of the ground on which Rome first rose, this book conjures all these cities, past and present, conducting the reader through time and space to the complex and shifting realities—architectural, historical, political, and social—that constitute Rome.

Venice came to life on mudflats at the edge of the habitable world. Protected in a tidal estuary from invaders and Byzantine overlords, the fishermen and traders who settled there crafted a way of life unlike anything the Roman Empire had ever known. In an astonishing feat of narrative history, James H. S. McGregor recreates this world, with its waterways rather than roads and its livelihood harvested from the sea. The narrative follows both a chronological and geographical organization, so that readers can trace the city’s evolution by chapter and visitors can explore it by district on foot and by boat.

At the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, President Washington chose a diamond-shaped site for the city that would bear his name, along with the burdens and blessings of democracy. Moving chronologically and geographically throughout the District, James H. S. McGregor tells a tale of two cities: official Washington, whose stately neoclassical buildings express the government’s power and global reach; and DC, whose minority communities, especially African Americans, live in the shadows of poverty.

Paris is the most personal of cities. There is a Paris for the medievalist, and another for the modernist—a Paris for expatriates, philosophers, artists, romantics, and revolutionaries of every stripe. James H. S. McGregor brings these multiple perspectives into focus throughout this concise, unique history of the City of Light. Color maps, along with identifying illustrations, make the city accessible to visitors by foot, Metro, or riverboat.