The Red and Black

Issue date: 6/11/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy James McGregor "Paris From the Ground Up" is James McGregor's fourth book in a series of six books. [Click to enlarge]

Combine the architectural makings of Paris with the historic circumstances under which they were built and you get the book "Paris From the Ground Up."

The book, written by University professor James McGregor, was reviewed in the May 31 issue of The New York Times, and is the fourth book in his "From the Ground Up" series.

"It focuses on what purposes the city served for the many different communities that have lived there over that long span of time," McGregor told the Red & Black.

"I was very happy that the review focused on the kinds of things that I feel I do well," said McGregor, the co-department head of comparative literature.

The review cites McGregor's work as "an informative history of the city's art and architecture."

McGregor is no stranger to having his books reviewed.

He said he has been featured in professional publications and newspapers alike, including the London Times, The New York Review of Books and the Chicago Tribune.

It took McGregor, who began his writing career in the 1980s with "Rome From the Ground Up," two years to write "Paris."

"I approached Lindsay Waters, the humanities editor at Harvard, with a synopsis of my Rome book and a review that another university press had solicited from a well-known scholar who works in Rome," said McGregor.

After he authored his first book of the series, he negotiated contracts for five other books, four of which are in print.

His other books discuss the cities of Venice and Washington, D.C.

McGregor is working on his fifth book in the series, which is about the Mediterranean.

He said the inspiration came from his course, Literature and Nature, which he taught at the University in the spring.

"While I was still in his class, he was writing the book, " said Catherine Riccio, a graduate teaching student and a former student of McGregor's.

"He's just one of those people who knows everything about to everything."

He said his writing career has not changed his teaching career.

"Research and publication are part of the job," he said. "Writing books is one of the primary ways that humanists publish their research."

McGregor said he will begin writing his sixth book in about a year.

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