| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Merchant of Illusion: James Rouse, America's Salesman of the Businessman's Utopia. By Nicholas Dagen Bloom. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004. xxii, 223 pp. $49.95, ISBN 0-8142-0953-X.)

James Rouse stands among the most prominent real estate developers in the United States during the twentieth century. Not long after entering that field in the 1950s, he became one of the nation's leading advocates of the enclosed regional mall. Before the decade's end he also embarked on creating comprehensively planned communities, culminating in the new town of Columbia, Maryland, an endeavor that brought him international fame. That renown was reinforced by his embrace of the festival market place, beginning with Quincy Market in Boston. Never satisfied with his achievements, Rouse went on to focus on inner-city housing projects for the poor, continuing this work well after retirement. For much of his life Rouse was held as a leading figure not just in these specialized arenas but in the complex fields of real estate development and community revitalization more broadly. Perhaps no other individual carried more respect and authority.

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