After risking the hazardous journey across the Atlantic, these Americans embarked on a greater journey in the City of Light. That they achieved so much for themselves and their country profoundly altered American history.

Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in America, was one of this intrepid band. Another was Charles Sumner, who would become the most powerful, unyielding voice for abolition in the U.S. Senate.

Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Henry James were all discovering Paris, marveling at the treasures in the Louvre, or out with the Sunday throngs strolling the city's boulevards and gardens. At last I have come into a dreamland, wrote Harriet Beecher Stowe, seeking escape from the notoriety Uncle Tom's Cabinhad brought her.

McCullough tells this sweeping, fascinating story with power and intimacy, bringing us into the lives of remarkable men and women.