This new survey provides a complete history of American art and architecture from seventeenth-century beginnings to the latest installation and video work.

All the major American artists and works are included;
dozens of building types are illustrated and discussed – from the earliest colonial houses and churches to the most spectacular modernist and postmodernist stores, museums, stations, and iconic skyscrapers.

The characteristics of the different periods are defined, highlighting the forms, techniques, and styles that mark the works as distinctively American. The ways in which American artists and architects both adopted and diverged from European models to create a language of their own are charted, and Lewis shows how that language eventually came to dominate the rest of the world.

The author dextrously integrates discussions of both buildings and works of art, revealing the shared social and aesthetic concerns that underlie them. Vernacular, religious, secular, and corporate architecture appear alongside painting, sculpture, photography, and new-media art.