Like many collections of essays focused on a relatively narrow topic this volume suffers a little from repetition of information as each author necessarily covers some of the same ground in introducing their own subject of concern. That said, the book is an interesting exploration of the manner in which the unique aesthetic developed by H. H. Richardson on the east coast of the continent was adopted enthusiastically for the domestic, commercial, and especially, the institutional buildings of the booming American Midwest of the late nineteenth century, throwing light on the social, political and economic dynamics of the 'official' appropriation of a distinctive architectural style. As a chronicle of the development of the Richardsonian style by relatively little-known practitioners, often working far from the centers of fashion, the book will appeal to those who understand architectural history as something more than a survey of canonical buildings. Especially valuable to anyone interested in the relationship between cultural regionalism and the particular physical environment in which it develops is the final essay by John Hudson, in which the eminently lithic Richardsonian buildings of the prairies are considered in relation to local supplies of building stone and the pattern of railway networks in the area.
