— Professor Laura Wood Roper

In this definitive biography of the 'father of landscape architecture, ' Laura Wood Roper captures the full range of Olmsted's contributions to American thought and institutions as well as to its landscape.

— Witold Rybczynski

We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes—among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, and Boston's Back Bay Fens. But Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as the executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross.

— Justin Martin

Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about. Best remembered for his landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, Olmsted was also an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War. This momentous career was shadowed by a tragic personal life, also fully portrayed here.Most of all, he was a social reformer. He didn't simply create places that were beautiful in the abstract. An awesome and timeless intent stands behind Olmsted's designs, allowing his work to survive to the present day. With our urgent need to revitalize cities and a widespread yearning for green space, his work is more relevant now than it was during his lifetime. Justin Martin restores Olmsted to his rightful place in the pantheon of great Americans.

— Jeanne Kolva

A historic overview of the parks the Olmsted companies created in New Jersey primarily for the county park commissions in Essex, Union, and Passaic counties. Son and stepson of the creator of New York's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and John Charles Olmsted, continued with their father's naturalistic style of landscape architecture, with 20th-century modifications, into the 1960s. Illustrated with more than 200 historic and contemporary photographs, vintage postcards, and Olmsted sketches and plans, this survey chronologically details the development of each park or reservation as it was transformed from former farmland, swamp, forest, or a previous park. Included are the gems of Branch Brook Park in Newark, Cadwalader Park in Trenton, Warinanco Park in Roselle, and Brookdale Park in Montclair and Bloomfield. Discover the Olmsted legacy in some of the most magnificent public parks in New Jersey.