| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 232 words from this article are provided below; about 613 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Maura Lyons. William Dunlap and the Construction of an American Art History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 2005. Pp. xii, 182. $34.95.

William Dunlap as an artist has faded from view, but as a writer who inaugurated the genre of histories of American art he retains a lively presence in the literature of the field. With the publication of his History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States in 1834, he established his authority as recorder of the key biographical events and artistic achievements of his predecessors and his contemporaries. It is Maura Lyons's project to show how Dunlap's prodigious text emerged, not as an objective encyclopedic account but as a narrative deeply inflected by Dunlap's residence in New York City, his affiliation with the National Academy of Design, and by his personal and professional quarrels. She tracks the history of the History from its initial qualified success in the 1830s to its eclipse at midcentury and to its subsequent rediscoveries in 1876 (that era of backward-looking exuberance), 1914 (when descendant Theodore Woolsey celebrated Dunlap as "The American Vasari"), 1930 (when the New York Historical Society published Dunlap's diaries), 1939 (when the Addison Gallery arranged an exhibition based on Dunlap's text), and the 1960s when dissertations and new editions of the History began to appear.

. . .

There are about 613 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.