The history of the profession of landscape architecture in the United States is still obscure to most people, even landscape practitioners. One of the most important figures in this field was Charles Eliot, whose story is told in this richly detailed biography. It was written by his father, the president of Harvard College, in 1902, a few years after Eliot's death at age thirty-eight from spinal meningitis.

Like his colleague and partner Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., the younger Eliot was a figure of enormous talent and energy, and a major force in the profession. He emerges from his father's...