Giving Preservation a History ─ Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States

Editors Page (architecture and history, U. of Massachusetts-Amhurst)and Mason (architecture, U. of Pennsylvania) describe the historic preservation movement in the US as "one of the broadest and longest- lasting land-use reforms in this country." In ten essays on origin stories, the many preservation movements in the US, and the future of historic architecture preservation, they and their contributors describe how the movement is a crusade with contradictions; they show how it has changed from preserving the brownstones of dead Brahmins to bringing to life the stories of those who endured discrimination and marginalization. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Max Page is an Associate Professor of Architecture and History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a 2003 Guggenheim Fellow. He is the author of The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900-1940 (University of Chicago Press, 1999), and co-author with Steven Conn of Building the Nation: Americans Write About Their Architecture, Their Cities, and Their Landscape (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Randall Mason is an Assistant Professor in the Planning School and the Director of the Graduate Program in Preservation at the University of Maryland.