When, after prolonged debate, the First Congress tossed the job of choosing the site for the future capital of the new United States into the lap of President George Washington, neither it nor he could have foreseen the great city that would arise at the confluence of the Potomac River and its tributary, the Anacostia. Variously described as the "City on the Hill," a malarial swamp, the new Rome, or - most notably by President John F. Kennedy - a city of "Northern charm And Southern efficiency," Washington, D.C., is the home not only of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government, but also of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and other cultural delights almost too numerous to list. But they're all here - past, present, and even a little of the future - in Washington, D.C.: A Smithsonian Book Of The Nation's Capital. Here is the history of the city from its modest beginnings through its somnolent years as a small Southern town, occasionally awakened by war, to its present position as the most powerful city in the world. Here are its monuments and memorials, from Lafayette Square and Sheridan Circle to Arlington National Cemetery, just across the river. Washington, D.C. looks lovingly at the city's cultural treasures, which are sometimes forgotten in the hurly-burly of politics, and portrays vividly the long and rich history of Washington's African-American community. It visits the capital's varied, vibrant neighborhoods to reveal a city of real people behind the official marble facades. Insider tours of the White House, the Capitol, and the Smithsonian Institution are here for the enjoyment of visitors and armchair travelers alike. And how about those Redskins, the "tie that binds" this city of enormous diversity. Washington, D.C., is a unique city, created from whole cloth to be a capital. And, of course, Americans have always been of two minds about it. On the one hand, it's where the politicians are, and a lot of people hold that against it. On the other, Washington is the capital of the United States of America, the essential center of the nation. It's the symbol as well as the physical embodiment of our ongoing Great Experiment, the seat of government "of the people, by the people, for the People." Here is the Lincoln Memorial, where those words are immortalized, and the nearby Vietnam Veterans Memorial, whose long wall of names recalls another divisive war. Here are the White House, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the Declaration of Independence, and the Star-Spangled Banner. It's a city most Americans want to visit, our secular Mecca. Whether we come to stand in line for a tour of the White House - and perhaps a glimpse of its First Occupant - or to watch our Senators and Representatives as they wrestle with the knotty problems of the day, or just to see the sights, we take away with us from Washington a deep impression of the majesty and grandeur of the American drama.