Wiseman focuses to a large extent on its makers - the commanding figures who by force of personality and sheer artistic ability have indelibly influenced its progress: Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn, Philip Johnson, I. M. Pei, Robert Venturi, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, and Frank Gehry among many others. The triumph of modernism; the growth of architectural preservation; the eclipse of the practical arts of building by money, theory, and abstraction; the American proclivity to approach art with a certain amount of suspicion, amplified by the conflict between partisans of the countryside and the city; and the uncertain future of architecture in a country that celebrates both individualism and community - these are just some of the issues Wiseman addresses with a scholar's learning, a journalist's flair and a critic's firm and often witty judgment.