Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)There were three great books written about journeys to the American West in 1859: The best was Mark Twain's semi-fictional ROUGHING IT. The next best was Sir Richard F. Burton's THE CITY OF THE SAINTS, about a journey to see what Mormonism was all about and to meet with Brigham Young.
That Horace Greeley's book should be third in this line-up is no disgrace. There is so much self-conscious mythmaking about the Old West that eyewitness accounts of intelligent observers are as rare as hen's teeth. Before the completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad, any journey across the Great Plains was attended by danger, discomfort, and memorable encounters. It is unfortunate that there so so few good accounts.
Greeley was first and foremost a newspaper man. He had a sharp eye for what he thought would interest his readers (unlike Twain & Burton who wrote sub specie aeternitatis) and did not disappoint. His descriptions of the Indians, the rigors of the road, and the struggling communities a-borning west of the Platte make for fascinating reading.
This is one of those great books to take along on a car journey through the Rockies and Great Plains.
Click Here to see more reviews about: An Overland Journey, from New York to San Francisco in the summer of 1859
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.
0 comments:
Post a Comment