The Best of the West: Anthology of Classic Writing From the American West, An Review

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(More customer reviews)Among the history books about the Wild West this is like a siver dollar among paper money: While many of them are just so much rustling paper, unable to wake the spirit of the time or bring the people to life, this one speaks with their own voice, loud and clear. To me, a student from Germany, who knew the West only from Hollywood movies and Karl May (the only author I missed in the anthology, but he is rather a German speciality), the whole time gained flesh and bones while reading the accounts of such divers people as Indian chiefs and Philadelphia ladies turned Cowgirl. The possibilities of a place where conventions didn't count as much as your ability to ride a horse or rope a cow strike one very vivid from these pages. Besides - not all cowboys were white (or male). All the different people that made up the Wild West get to have their say and your can, after reading this anthology, truly say for yourself that you can picture, say Dalton City at it's peak.

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A sterling collection of classic and contemporary fiction and nonfiction evoking the unique spirit of the West and its people, selected and introduced by one of today's premier chroniclers of the Western landscape and a New York Times bestselling author.

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Up and Down California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer, Fourth Edition, with Maps Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a lot of things. First, it's a marvelous description of what unmapped California was like--when Los Angeles had 4,000 inhabitants, and shootings every Saturday night. The physical descriptions of the state are very interesting. But it's also a sort of social record; Brewer stayed with families on his travels, and the description of life on these isolated homesteads is absorbing. Up and Down California is also, of course, an adventure story. Brewer and his companions traveled for four years, on foot, by horse, mule and steamer, throughout a vast and wild territory, sleeping outdoors in fine weather and foul. As I recall, the only time during this period when he was ill was when he spent a couple of nights in a hotel room! Last, the book is very moving; Brewer joined the California survey because of the death of his young wife and child in New England. The book is a compilation of his letters home to his family. After the survey was over he returned to Connecticut and had a very useful career in the new field of public health, as teacher and administrator. He was an honest man, a good writer, and dedicated public servant. The book is highly enjoyable, and it's not necessary to be a California to appreciate it!

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In 1860 William Brewer, a young Yale-educated teacher of the natural sciences and a recent widower, eagerly accepted an offer from Josiah Whitney to assist in the first geological survey of the state of California. Brewer was not a geologist, but his training in agriculture and botany made him an invaluable member of the team. He traveled more than fourteen thousand miles in the four years he spent in California and spent much of his leisure time writing lively, detailed letters to his brother back East. These warmly affectionate letters, presented here in their entirety, describe the new state in all its spectacular beauty and paint a vivid picture of California in the mid-nineteenth century. This fourth edition includes a new foreword by William Bright (1500 California Place Names) and a set of maps tracing Brewer's route.

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The Ballad of Lucy Whipple Review

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(More customer reviews)When I was nearly finished with LUCY WHIPPLE my teacher told me that I might be assighned to that book for a book report. But that would have been fine with me, because I enjoyed it so much that I would've been glad to read it again.
LUCY WHIPPLE is set in the mid 1800's, the time of The California Gold Rush. It is about a girl whos mother decides to move from Massachusets to California to search for gold. Unfortunately, Lucy hates the town (Lucky Diggins) they move to, and wants to move back to Massachusets.
This book was funny, original, yet it had some features that every book must have. LUCY WHIPPLE had some sad parts that made me cry. But all books must have something sad. Some authors don't write the sad parts very well, but Cushman did a fabulus job. The ending suprised me, and I'm glad Cushman chose to end it like that. LUCY WHIPPLE is definately on my list of "Books That Everyone Must Read".

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High And Wild: Essays And Photographs on Wilderness Adventures Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an amazing book. Some of the best color I've ever seen in one of Galen Rowell's books and with the new essays and new photographs, I'm really glad I bought it even though I already have the original book that came out in the 70's. This is basically a completely new book! Hats' off to the publisher!

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The Man Who Founded California: The Life of Blessed Junipero Serra Review

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(More customer reviews)San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego - some of the string of pearls along the length of California.
The book uncovers the work of those few hardy souls who founded those communities in the seventeen-hundreds. Their development model was radically different from the US mainstream: that the land belonged to the Native Americans, and that the missions were to mentor those who volunteered in their transition from the hunter-gatherer/horticulturalist to the agriculturalist strategy.
Already then we see the clash between Serra and the naive Europeans who wanted to rush to impose a European-model urban-based governance system, regardless of the vulnerability of Native-American culture to urban European abuses, and how he held them off for a generation.
And we also see the human dimension: how every great person is in the end a bundle of strengths and weaknesses, and how a person that felt ordinary in himself performs historic achievements. This account is both humbling and empowering.
A clear and fascinating account of Junipero Serra, key person in one of the greatest and most influential states of today's world.

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