John Simonson

If you are at all interested in the history and personality of Kansas City, this book is an utter pleasure to read. Simonson's tour through the first five decades of the twentieth century provide a colorful, non-academic (but still informative), thoroughly human history that is a quick and easy read while neither being simplistic or condescending. I'm going to recommend this to everyone I know from KC, new to KC, or remotely curious about the town.

Paris of the Plains is not really a history of Kansas City, but rather a collection of individual scenes in the lives of Kansas Citians. An interesting approach with concise prose, but the topic structure just doesn't work.

Each chapter comprises a range of years during the 20th century, and the chapters are subdivided into sections of no more than 1-3 pages. The writer takes the reader through these momentary snapshots, as if in a dream, flitting from one small bit of personal history to the show more next. And on and on. Nothing connects except for the larger setting.

I was born, raised and presently live in Kansas City, and this 'Paris of the Plains' feels a little foreign to me. show less