Old Barns in the New World: Reconstructing History

Rating:
Summary: A "must" for students of colonial era American architecture.
Review: In Old Barns In The New World: Reconstructing History, co-authors Richard Babcock and Lauren Stevens combine an historical survey of architecture and colonial craft, with thirty years of personal experience at hands-on restoration of dozens of barns. Richard Babcock is able to infer from ancient construction techniques both the date and nationality of a barn's builders which ranges from Dutch, German and English to Scotch-Irish, French, and the slave population of New England and eastern New York. Old Barns In The New World is a "must" for students of colonial era American architecture, and will prove to be deeply enjoyable, informative reading for American history buffs and old barn enthusiasts.

Rating:
Summary: Deconstruction of another sort.
Review: Richard Babcock studies, dismantles, moves, and rebuilds old barns, and is a recognized authority on colonial agricultural buildings.
Seeing barns as expressions of national identity as well as responses to the particular agricultural demands of the time, Babcock's expert analysis of joinery techniques and painstaking research have led him beyond description to controversial speculations about the nationality of the earliest white settlers, and the prevalence of slave labor in the northern colonies.
His work, enhanced with excellent drawings and photos, will be of interest to anyone interested in colonial life, and essential for students of agricultural architecture.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)