This is part two of my three-part series on Frederic Church, recorded on the grounds of Olana on the occasion of his 200th birthday. Victoria Johnson spent six years writing "Glorious Country: How The Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America and America to the World", the first major biography of Church, climbing Andean volcanoes in his footsteps, riding camels into Petra, and working through tens of thousands of archival pages to bring him back to life. The result is one of the best books of the year, and our first Jiffy Book Club selection. We talked inside Cosy Cottage, where Church and his wife first lived when they moved to the farm that would become Olana. It's an intimate place: It's where his family life began, and where it was devastated. From there we range wide: his apprenticeship under Thomas Cole, his South American expeditions inspired by Alexander von Humboldt, his rockstar moment with "The Heart of the Andes", his political paintings on the eve of the Civil War, and what it means that his most resonant work feels so current right now. "Glorious Country" is our first Jiffy Book Club selection. Sign up: https://bookclub.thejiffy.xyz To learn more about Victoria's work and to buy her book, visit: https://gloriouscountry.org About the guest: Victoria Johnson is a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College in New York City. She holds a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Yale. Her previous book, "American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic", was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. "Glorious Country: How the Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America and America to the World" is her third book and the first full biography ever written about Frederic Church, the nineteenth-century landscape painter whose work helped establish American art on the world stage. Subscribe: Get the newsletter at thejiffy.xyz – photos, behind-the-scenes extras, interviews, and a monthly curated list of arts and sciences events across upstate New York. Until next time, I'll see you over on the James Cave Instagram Feed.