Describes the life of the landscape architect responsible for New York's Central Park and Boston's Emerald Necklace including his lesser-known time spent as an influential journalist, early voice for the environment and abolitionist, all overshadowed by a tragic personal life.

"A Merloyd Lawrence book."

Why Olmsted matters -- pt. I. "An enthusiast by nature": growing up, 1822-1851 : So very young ; At sea ; Uncommon friends ; A farmer and finite ; Two pilgrimages -- pt. II. "The cause of future freedom": Southern travels and journalism, 1852-1857 : "The south" ; Tief im herzen von Texas ; A red-hot abolitionist ; The literary republic -- III. "A people's pleasure-ground": conceiving Central Park, 1857-1861 : "Is New York really not rich enough?" ; Right man, right place ; A park is born ; Growling green ; Swans -- IV. "Heroes along with the rest": Civil War service, 1861-1863 : In search of a mission ; In the republic of suffering ; Antietam to Gettysburg ; "The country cannot spare you" -- V. "There seems to be no limit": California, 1863-1865 : Gold dust ; Yosemite ; Unsettled in the west -- VI. "Where talents and the needs of the world cross": shaping the nation, 1865-1877 : New prospects ; City planning: Buffalo and Chicago ; Battling boss tweed, splitting with Vaux ; Blindness and vision -- VII. "I have all my life been considering distant effects": summits and sorrows, 1877-1903 : A troubled wander year ; Stringing emeralds ; Saving Niagara, designing Stanford ; Big house in the big woods ; A white city dreamscape ; "Before I am the least prepared for it" ; Fade -- Olmsted's wild garden -- Appendix : The Olmsted views.