Part 1. An American Aesthetic and Its Travails
Measuring Up to Veblenism
Lagging Arts/Advancing Sciences
The Economics of Cultural Deficit
Nature, God, Art, Science
God's Time/Government Time
Transitions without Resolutions
Case Studies: Adaptations to Veblenism
Part 2. Capitol of Best Intentions
The Perfect Republic: Comparative Perspectives
Creation Ab Ova: How Washington, D.C. Came About (1783-1790)
Celebratory Histories: Old and New Style
Republican Virtue on Display
Waiting for Greatness to Happen (1820-1860)
From a National Aesthetic to Nationalist Art
A History of One's Choosing
Montgomery Meigs and the Remaking of Washington, D.C.
America's "Freedom"/Venice's "Justice"
The Unbearable Lightness of the Void
Aesthetics of Death: The Mall and Beyond
Paraphrases of the Ideal/Allegories of the Real
Part 3. Aesthetic Lives: The Literary Approach
Theories Incarnate/Forms Divine
Create, Decay, and Destroy
