Buildings of Rhode Island /

Rhode Island may the second smallest US state, but its architecture has loomed large and has attracted some of our most important historians, including Norman Isham, Albert Brown, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Antoinette Downing, and Vincent Scully. This volume, ninth in the 58-volume "Buildings of the United States" series undertaken by the Society of Architectural Historians, is the fruitful product of three authors who have contributed so much to our knowledge of the state's architecture. Originally undertaken by William H. Jordy, a distinguished architectural historian at Brown University, and completed after his death by Onorato (art, Univ. of Rhode Island) and Woodward (architectural historian, Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission), Buildings of Rhode Island is an important addition to the series, whose objective is to present useful guidebooks and state-of-the-art scholarship. This book accomplishes both goals remarkably well: the research and documentation by the authors and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission is exemplary. Buildings combines strong contextual information (in the introduction and chapter head notes) and some of the last writings of Jordy (one of the pioneers of American architectural history) with remarkable detail in the description of neighborhoods, buildings, and architects. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through professionals. D. Schuyler Franklin & Marshall College