The American Abraham: James Fenimore Cooper and the Frontier Patriarch (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)

Book Description

In this book Warren Motley offers an original interpretation of James Fenimore Cooper’s career. Whereas most studies of Cooper have centered on the figure of the Leatherstocking - that solitary model of the self-sufficient American hero untrammeled by civilization - this book examines Cooper’s interest in the pioneer patriarchs who built new societies in the wilderness. Throughout his career Cooper explored an essential American problem: how to achieve the right balance between freedom and authority. He did this by retelling the story of the frontier settlement and thereby assessing its successes and failures. Like other writers in the decades before the Civil War, Cooper struggled with the legacy of the Revolutionary fathers - a legacy made more personal in Cooper’s case by his father’s role as a frontier land developer, judge, and Federalist politician. This book breaks new ground by relating Cooper’s artistic development, and his ideas about authority in society, to his efforts to become independent of his father. Motley traces Cooper’s preoccupation with authority from his youthful letters, through the troubled decade that preceded his decision to be a writer, and on to his studies of American history at its different stages in such books as The Wept of Wisb-Ton-Wish, Satanstoe, The Pioneers, The Prairie, and The Crater. By making his fiction into a series of imaginative negotiations with authority, Cooper offered a radical re-presentation of American history and frontier settlement. This view acknowledged the achievement of the nation’s founders while at the same time expressing Cooper’s independent vision and establishing him in the role of a founder as the nation’s first major novelist. In Cooper’s fiction, the future of American society ultimately rests not with the Leatherstocking and his fictional progeny but with the American Abraham.

Rachel Carson: Pioneer of Ecology (Women of Our Time)

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A great book which should be read by everyone!

Rachel Carson: Pioneer of Ecology (Women of Our Time)
Kathleen V. Kudlinski
Manufacturer: Puffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140322426

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A great book which should be read by everyone!.......2000-06-14

I think that this book is very informative on what we are doing to our environment. This book tells about Rachel Carson's life, family, career, and more. It tells about how she fought to keep our environment clean and safe for everyone. She warned people in her book, Silent Spring, which can also be found here on Amazon.com. Well, I cannot spoil this book! What I can tell you is that this is a great book which you should read.

Reading the West: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts (Bedford Cultural Editions)

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Reading the West: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts (Bedford Cultural Editions)
Bill Brown
Manufacturer: Bedford/St. Martin's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312137613

Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend (Missouri Biography Series)

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Wish it were a little more personal.
Want to read a colorful biography or a dry history book?
Well-Researched and Most Interesting
Fascinating, insightful.
The Best Book Ever

Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend (Missouri Biography Series)
John E. Miller
Manufacturer: University of Missouri Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 082621648X

Amazon.com

Legends have attached themselves to Laura Ingalls Wilder, beloved author of the eight Little House novels, but what are the facts? Fans are familiar with her early pioneer years up to her marriage, at age 19, to Almanzo Wilder. But before this biography, little has been known about her adult years. This detail-packed biography amends that. John E. Miller has availed himself of myriad primary sources--Ingalls Wilder's unpublished autobiography, letters, her newspaper stories, and other documentary materials. Miller's approach is to track her evolution into one of American's most popular children's writers, a formidable challenge, because she left behind little in the way of personal revelation. Published between 1932 and 1943, the Little House novels were immediately seized upon; strangely, Ingalls Wilder did not begin her career as a novelist until she was in her mid-60s.

What happened between the adolescent years, dramatized in her novels, and the period between 1943 and 1957, when she was basking in the glow of her readers' affection? "To write her 'autobiographical' novels," Miller notes, "Wilder needed to undergo a process of becoming, which depended heavily upon the inheritance that she had received both from her family and, across the years, from the various environments in which she lived."

One minor flaw in this otherwise reverent biography is Miller's incredulity that such an ordinary, farm-town woman could become such a famous and sophisticated author. He strains to identify the extraordinary, formative moments--Wilder's various memberships in local political organizations; her apprenticeship as a farm-journal columnist; her relationship with her talented and precocious daughter, Rose. More interesting is his curiosity about how she came to be an independent career woman in a time of limited options for women, in a place (the Ozarks of Missouri) remote, isolated, and tradition bound.

Ingalls Wilder's daughter, the extraordinary Rose Wilder Lane (prominent in the American literary scenes in the 1920s and 1930s), had a major role in the production of her mother's novels. Indeed, the remarkable mother-daughter relationship itself makes the book well-worth reading. Laura would learn to write from her daughter; however Miller argues against the widely held belief that it was Rose Lane's sophisticated writing skills that transformed and polished her mother's novels.

Miller begins with the history of the Ingalls family and their first settlement, which was in Wisconsin along the banks of the Mississippi River. The history unfolds at a sprightly pace and paints the hardscrabble pioneer life in bright colors--the family's search for good farmland that drives them to Missouri; the physical challenges of the prairie; plagues of locusts; the fragile farm economy; and the burgeoning immigrant population. This biography will appeal to readers already hooked by the Little House series and hungry for the facts of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life independent of the myths that grew out of her fiction. --Hollis Giammatteo

Customer Reviews:

Wish it were a little more personal........2007-02-24

I found this to be a good book, although I wish the author would have personalized Laura a little more. The ongoing battle between mother and daughter might have been overemphasized, but one comes to learn that this probably worked for both of them. I found a lot of good information, but the statistics were a little much. I found myself reading between the lines and wanted to get back to the meat of the story...Laura.

I recommend this book to any Wilder fan, for it does give us a glimpse into the woman she really was. Like anyone else, Laura was only human, faults and all.

Meloni Cassidy
Author of Everlasting Journey

Want to read a colorful biography or a dry history book?.......2006-08-31

I purchased this book to read about how Laura Ingalls Wilder became the celebrated author of the Little House series of books. I was very disappointed, therefore, that this uninsightful, dry, fragmented, and repetitious tome read more like a bad history book with too many statistics, facts and figures, rather than character analysis, leaving me with no more knowledge of Laura's character than before I read it. For example, after describing ad nauseum all the organizations and activities one could possibly participate in their town, the author states that we do not know if Laura and her family enjoyed any of them. It was frustrating to constantly read the words "probably, maybe, if, we can presume ....." The author makes too many assumptions and repeatedly expresses his inability to accurately understand and relay Laura's personal feelings due to the unfortunate lack of diaries, letters, and journals left behind by Mrs. Wilder. Relying too much on her daughter, Rose's writings, he portrays Laura as an overprotective, condescending, controlling mother and a domineering wife who refused to vow to obey her husband during their wedding. Miller is not quite sure he even believes Rose's unflattering portrayal of her mother, because she was mentally ill and emotionally unstable herself. This book contains so much one-sided information about Laura's daughter that it should instead be titled Becoming Rose Wilder Lane.

Well-Researched and Most Interesting.......2005-12-21

Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder is a wonderfully written, detailed account of the real-life, complex woman that scores of American children grew to love through Wilder's award-winning "Little House" series of books. Author, John E. Miller is to be commended for his work, since his was no easy undertaking in telling the story of the celebrated author, who experienced more than a fair share of financial struggles and setbacks, as well as a stormy, difficult relationship with her only child, Rose Wilder Lane.

Faithful readers first got to know Laura and the Ingalls family through Wilder's charming, semi-autobiographical stories of the family's pioneering experiences, as they eked out an existence during the latter part of the 19th Century. John Miller's superbly researched biography brings to palpability the rather ordinary and unexceptional people who later became the characters in Laura's charming stories, elevated to their iconic status by the passage of time and the beauty of Laura's simplistic, unique brand of prose. Miller carefully crafts Laura's story with careful, concurrent attention to the rapidly changing world around Laura's "Little House" stories and the result provides for fascinating reading, steeped in American history. In so telling Laura's story, however, Miller also was confronted with the complicated task of exploring the rather unpleasant, antagonistic relationship shared between Laura and Rose in all the starkness and raw-nerve quality it probably is deserving of, since the information was derived primarily from journals of and correspondence between mother and daughter and not tempered by the author's personal contact, knowledge or emotional involvement with either person.

Miller (wisely) seems to side-step the loaded topic that Rose ghost-wrote her mother's novels. It appears, he himself does not personally subscribe to the idea, yet he handles the issues fairly in his presentation of some of the following facts: Rose typed and edited her mother's hand-written manuscripts, as well as converted the narrations of Laura's writings from first person (which was the style Laura was most comfortable with and therefore utilized in all of the first drafts of her books) to third person; she likewise assisted in the research of historic facts and cultural details that had long-escaped Laura's childhood memories (she was 63 years of age, when she wrote Little House in the Big Woods, the first book in the seven book series), as well as provided a good deal of encouragement and seasoned advice, that Laura most assuredly must have depended upon.

Rose's role in the complicated dynamics of her family was not an easy one. The tragic memories the Dakotas held for Laura and her husband, Almanzo, were no doubt instrumental in their final choice to move to the Ozarks and thereby place a formidable amount of distance between themselves and Laura's family, all of whom remained in various locations in South Dakota for the rest of their lives. Deprived of contact with and moral support from her tightly-knit family and partnered in a long marriage with a man who was old before his time, dour, taciturn and seemingly disappointed with life in general, Laura seemed compelled (by something almost akin to fear) to cling frantically to her only child. Rose, who by all accounts (including the observations recorded in the journal of Laura's youngest sister, Grace) was a precocious and unusually bright child; predictably she was destined to rebel against the smothering attentions her mother focused upon her.

After reading Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder, in my opinion, it seems probable that Laura and Rose formed a symbiotic type of partnership as Laura penned her juvenile series, that has enjoyed decades of acclaim, was adapted for a long-running television series (that took considerable artistic liberties with the actual novels), and inspired a variety of low-budget movies focusing on various phases of Laura's life. Since Rose was a successful author in her own right, the mixed feelings and open resentment she apparently harbored for her mother and her mother's ensuing success as a writer, at times seems like matters of petty jealousy, but also peculiar and prompted by a quirky sense of competitiveness. In Rose's defense, however, the real-life Laura was considerably different (as an adult) than the spunky, "little half-pint" her readers were familiar with; she was seemingly quick-tempered, extremely high-strung, opinionated, nit-picky and with a propensity for nagging. Undoubtedly, much of Laura's anxiousness and over-dependency on the free-spirited Rose was in a large part prompted by the economic uncertainty that apparently plagued Laura and Almanzo for most of their lives. It would have seemed that the financial independence Laura's success as an author provided would have been welcomed by Rose; but, in fact, it appears Rose was rather indifferent to her mother's celebrity and blasé about the critical acclaim of Laura's books.

Any true fan of the "Little House" books will revel in Miller's book. "Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder" provides its readers with a fascinating perspective as it explores the real-life characters Wilder brought to live on the pages of her stories which are rife with the sweet music of Pa's fiddle, swaying covered wagons making their way westward, the lonely howl of a wolf drifting across the dark, silent prairie and the tender comforts of a simpler life in an era long past, but (thankfully) not forgotten.

Fascinating, insightful........2005-11-28

Unlike many of the other reviewers of this book, I wasted no time looking for alleged flaws in this book. As someone who grew up with and was indelibly influenced by Laura's books, I really appreciated no end the look at the woman behind the legend, as the apt title suggests. Miller does a fantastic job of showing how he pieced through all the existing evidence, and of drawing logical conclusions. It must have been a significant challenge to have drawn those conclusions, given that all of the subjects are long dead: in other words, Miller has done our work for us, giving the reader an opportunity to have an absorbing look at the real woman and her family. For any admirer of Laura Ingalls Wilder's timeless, priceless chronicles, they will not want to pass up this invaluable, generously insightful study. I thank John Miller for an incredible job well done.

The Best Book Ever.......2005-04-29

This is by far the most wondeful book you will ever read about
Laura Ingalls. Why? You may ask. Because we finally see Laura for what she is , human. That's right Laura has faults like us all. One point that clearly brings this out is how she ruled the house as well as Almonza and that she did not like going to church. Laura was a very outspoken wonderful person, her books
will always have a special place in my heart. Give this book a try, you will see Laura in a whole new light.

Natural Writer: A Story About Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Creative Minds Biographies)

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Inspiring Reading for Creative Youngsters

Natural Writer: A Story About Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Creative Minds Biographies)
Judy Cook , and Laura Lee Smith
Manufacturer: Carolrhoda Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 157505468X

Customer Reviews:

Inspiring Reading for Creative Youngsters.......2001-05-19

Creative youngsters of a somewhat higher age-range than the one recommended, about 8-15 years really, will find themselves inspired by the account of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' early struggle to find her forte as a writer, in this latest of the Creative Minds Biography series. Sprinkled with finely detailed, full-page charcoal drawings, it also draws an engaging parallel between the young Marjorie's life on a family farm and Jody Baxter's in "The Yearling." Marjorie's father Arthur Kinnan nurtured her love of nature just as Penny Baxter did for Jody, which gives us a fascinating insight into the true-life sources for Kinnan Rawlings' famous creations. The highs and lows of her life and career in rural Florida are then undramatically yet sensitively described: the book's tone is quiet and true, as clear and sweet as a brook in Rawlings' fiction.

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Insights about life that still apply.
A Wonderful Sentimental Read for any Mom with grown children
A Book For All Time
Appreciate this story more as an adult
What a Beautiful Read

A Lantern in Her Hand
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0803259220

Book Description

First published in 1928, A Lantern in Her Hand has outlasted literary fashions to touch generations of readers.

In this classic story of a pioneer woman, Bess Streeter Aldrich modeled protagonist Abbie Deal on her own mother, who in 1854 had traveled by covered wagon to the Midwest.

In A Lantern in Her Hand, Abbie accompanies her family to the soon-to-be-state of Nebraska. There, in 1865, she marries and settles into her own sod house. The novel describes Abbie's years of child-raising, of making a frontier home able to withstand every adversity. A Disciplined writer knowledgeable about true stories of pioneer days in Nebraska, Bess Streeter Aldrich conveys the strength of everyday things, the surprise of familiar faces, and the look of the unspoiled landscape during different seasons. Refusing to be broken by hard experience, Abbie sets a joyful example for her family-and for her readers.

Customer Reviews:

Insights about life that still apply........2007-07-22

Recently had a family reunion in Nebraska to return ashes of a family member. This book was suggested because it would give one a real feel as to what life was like for the early pioneer families.
The book was a bit silly at first; but as the young lady matured so did her actions and speech. I ended up enjoying it very much and enjoying the insights about life and family that still apply.

A Wonderful Sentimental Read for any Mom with grown children.......2007-05-13

I first heard of 'A Lantern in Her Hand' and Bess Aldrich many years ago when my children were in elementary school in Omaha. (There is even an Aldrich elementary.)While the setting is in the praries of Nebraska, the story is universal of a mother's love for her children and how she finds joy in them and through them. I just bought 4 more copies to give as gifts to moms I admire!

A Book For All Time.......2006-11-08

I get the chills when I read the reviews for this book, because I have felt the same thing as so many of the reviewers. This book can (& should) be read over and over again - at different ages. This is what I have done. I started reading it in grade school, when I got it from Scholastic Books, and every 5 years or so I pick it up again. Each time I read it I feel differently about the characters. They haven't changed, but I have! What a wonderful way to see how I have developed over the years. Get it for your young adult, but tell her to hold onto it.

Appreciate this story more as an adult.......2006-07-18

I picked up this book the other night to read. I read it when I was young, and haven't read it in the past 35 years. I knew immediately as I started to read, that I would appreciate it more now, than as a young girl. There is so much life experience in this book that young adults wouldn't really understand. This is a wonderful book for many reasons. It tells the entire story of Abby's life, it gives a good picture of how Nebraska became settled, but most importantly, it shows how people change as they grow up and age. I would highly recommend this book to any woman, any age.

What a Beautiful Read.......2006-06-24

Personally, had I read this book at a younger age, I probably would have been unable to appreciate it. In this story about Abbie Deal, life is very layered just as life really is. A carefree little girl living in the mid-1800's goes through a life journey of extreme emotional and physical circumstances but her heart of love takes on layer after layer in a format that redeems her own humanity. What might look like insurmountable burdens to the culture of thought today at the reading of this frontier story, in fact was an opportunity to become the best of who Abbie really was.

After a very active life at home and survival for 80+ years spanning roughly 1850 to 1930, Abbie is perfectly content with herself much to the chagrin of her own family. Laura, the young granddaughter who alone understands Abbie best, the portrait of her ancestor Isabelle Anders-Mackenzie that is searched for and found near the end of Abbie's life, and Katherine's "modern" day (1920's) personality that reverts back to the ways of an old-fashioned woman who happens to be her grandmother end this story in a delicate, endearing, soul-grabbing way.

The tune that Abbie sang aloud during her many rough times became more and more inspiring as the story presented it yet again in each new layer.

"Oh, the Lady of the Lea,
Fair and young and gay was she,
Beautiful exceedingly,
The Lady of the Lea.

For she had gold and she had land,
Everything at her command,
The Lady of the Lea.

Dreaming visions longingly,
The Lady of the Lea."

Excellent story. Older women and younger, single and married ladies will like this beautifully written story.

Telling Western Stories: From Buffalo Bill to Larry McMurtry (Calvin P. Horn Lectures in Western History and Culture)

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Telling Western Stories: From Buffalo Bill to Larry McMurtry (Calvin P. Horn Lectures in Western History and Culture)
Richard W. Etulain
Manufacturer: University of New Mexico Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

ASIN: 0826321399

Book Description

What has the western of literature and film contributed to American culture? Richard Etulain, the leading cultural historian of the West, answers that question by tracing four distinct storytelling traditions and exploring the indelible images each has left in the public's mind over the past 125 years. Our images of cowboys, lawmen, outlaws, and Indians come from a collage of sources, including Buffalo Bill, Frederick Jackson Turner, Calamity Jane, Mary Hallock Foote, Geronimo, Mourning Dove, Owen Wister, Zane Grey, Walter Noble Burns, John Ford, Louis L'Amour, Wallace Stegner, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Larry McMurtry.

Etulain begins with the dominant image conveyed in Wild West shows and dime novels of the late nineteenth century—the West as a place of adventure and danger. In the early twentieth century stories by women and Indians appeared, but they were soon overlooked and not rediscovered until the 1970s. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s represents the classic era of western movies and novels—of cavalry charges to save the day and heroes in white hats. But since the 1960s a counter story has emerged, one of ambiguity and complexity that often turned upside down our notions about what really mattered in how we look at the West.

Etulain carefully explores why stories of the frontier and American West still rival those of the American Civil War as the country's most popular tales, and he shows how narratives that persisted relatively unchanged for a century have moved in notable new directions since the 1960s.

Narrates the evolution of the western story from the Civil War to the present, focusing on books, movies, and people.

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Those who learn not from history repeat it.

Interesting, probably worth reading for L&C fans, but not a great book

An impressively wide-ranging set of essays charting more than just their journeys

The Indians Have It

Lewis and Clark through Indian Eyes

Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition (Vintage)
Alvin M. Jr Josephy
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Lewis and Clark among the Indians (Bicentennial Edition) (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus

The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest (American Heritage Library)

Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery

ASIN: 1400077494
Release Date: 2007-06-12

Book Description

At the heart of this landmark collection of essays rests a single question: What impact, good or bad, immediate or long-range, did Lewis and Clark’s journey have on the Indians whose homelands they traversed? The nine writers in this volume each provide their own unique answers; from Pulitzer prize-winner N. Scott Momaday, who offers a haunting essay evoking the voices of the past; to Debra Magpie Earling’s illumination of her ancestral family, their survival, and the magic they use to this day; to Mark N. Trahant’s attempt to trace his own blood back to Clark himself; and Roberta Conner’s comparisons of the explorer’s journals with the accounts of the expedition passed down to her. Incisive and compelling, these essays shed new light on our understanding of this landmark journey into the American West.

Customer Reviews:

Those who learn not from history repeat it........2006-10-05

Most good ideas are simple, and, as the title of this book suggests, it is a simple collection of some extremely profound ruminations by Native Americans on the acts and impact of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Nine extremely well educated authors were asked to address the effects of the Corps of Discovery for its bicentennial. They are not representative of the man in the street. They may, however, have captured the essence of feeling and sense of the collective beings of the many tribes whose lives were impacted forever, and give a foreboding of what manifest destiny may mean in the 21st century.

We learn facts, Sacagawea was not her name, she was not Shoshone, the natives shared their wives with the expedition, the Crows stole the Expedition horses and out traded Lewis and Clark by selling them nags, that the tribes knew of both oceans, had seen and dealt with Americans, Spanish, English and French before, that at least one of the tribes had sent emissaries to the east coast around the time of the American Revolution, and that Lewis and Clark, in reality, traveled fairly well known and used paths to the Pacific Ocean and back with the assistance of a multitude of tribes who fed and guided them. Although the natives viewed such a journey as difficult, there were regular trade routes established along much of Corps' path.

We learn too of the relationship of the "Corps of Discovery" to the doctrine of discovery that held the "civilized" countries could lay claim to all they discovered. Part of Jefferson's plan was to cement the United States' claim to the Louisiana Purchase. At least one tribe had to forcefully civilize the Corps when its members entered the homes of the tribe uninvited seeking food. After the starving Corps was reprimanded and made its apologies, it was fed.

We can also learn much of the Native American concept of God and the misinformation in Lewis and Clark's journals. The journal's report one tribe was a sun worshiping tribe when it was the custom of the tribe to worship the Great Spirit by facing toward the rising sun in the morning much as Muslim face Mecca. The sense of spirituality and connection with the land coursing through the various essays is the book's most powerful aspect.

We learn too of the absurdity of the "Great Father" in Washington concept. Though the eyes of hindsight, we all to clearly see how the lives of hundreds of thousands of courageous souls were lost by the "Great Father's" promises of help and threats of death to those who would not accept.

Cynics amongst us may see some parallel to the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq in which the Great White Father seeks to help the people to his way of life that he knows is best for them. Our manifest destiny now seems to be to force our way of life on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Korea, at least.

None of the authors addressed this 21st century vision of manifest destiny, but none embraced what the white man did to their ancestors and their way of life. Perhaps more could be learned and more might be said. More harm has been done by those who say they are there to help than those who outright admit they are enemies.

I am no Lewis and Clark scholar. However, any thinking person interested in both sides of the story will find this collection of essays provocative and probative of the lessons of our past that have important application to our present.

© Hamilton D. Moore

Interesting, probably worth reading for L&C fans, but not a great book.......2006-08-06

It is clear from Undaunted Courage or any version of the Journals that L&C could not have survived without the constant gracious help of Indians (which is what they call themselves in this book). The painful historical irony is clear without reading the book, especially with the Nez Perce (who kept the expedition from starving when the tribe could have killed L&C and taken their weapons, and who were chased out of their country a few decades later by U.S. troops). What is interesting in this book is how the various authors address this issue in the 21st century. There are passages about how the Indians must have viewed L&C at the time, but not much new. Various tribes are represented, and they have their own views on Sacajawea. The concept of the book was good, and there some are very good parts, but overall it's not compelling writing or reading. If the purpose was to record these views in a book, whether compelling or not, then it serves its purpose.

An impressively wide-ranging set of essays charting more than just their journeys.......2006-07-08

Plenty of history books tell the Lewis and Clark expedition story from different angles; but here for the first time is the other side of the story from nine descendants of the Native Americans whose homelands were traversed by the two intrepid explorers. From a newspaper editor who writes of his childhood belief he was descended from Clark to essays which reveal family encounters, tribal law, or the expedition's long impact on tribes today, Lewis And Clark Through Indian Eyes provides an impressively wide-ranging set of essays charting more than just their journeys.

The Indians Have It.......2006-07-05

Only a man of the lifelong sense of fairness and perspective of Alvin Josephy could have had the idea of letting Indian historians weigh in on such a momentous event. Alvin Josephy's intimate association with these writers gives the title of editor way more weight that it would normally get. This is a very important book, the last effort of a historian committed to the Indian side of the story. He lived to finish it--as he lived to understand and tell the Indian story. I am personally proud to have worked with and know Mr. Josephy for many years and I hope this book inspires young people to seek the other side of the story.

Lewis and Clark through Indian Eyes.......2006-06-07

This is an important book. In 2001, I asked a Hidatsa woman working on the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial effort about sources concerning the Native American view of Lewis and Clark. She answered that there wasn't a source. Further, she said that no one person could write such a book. The tribes with whom Lewis and Clark made contact were different in many ways; including their forms of government and how they lived their lives. Her words were certainly true. That this book contains essays by nine authors having different tribal backgrounds is a long step in the right direction. Certainly there are tribes and bands not represented; notably, the Blackfeet Nation is missing. Further, because the editor properly chose to accept the essays "unfiltered," the reader has to adapt from one essay to the next. However, the book is easy reading.

Precisely because nine essays were necessary, it is dangerous to generalize the content of this book. Several of the authors admire the people of the Lewis and Clark Expedition but conclude that the outcome was no big deal. The European diseases preceded Lewis and Clark and the hordes of non-Indians that followed Lewis and Clark would have come anyway. Almost every tribe had significant contact or knowledge of white people prior to Lewis and Clark. They were aware of how the whites had treated Indian tribes in the eastern United States. A common theme reiterated by nearly every author is that their people have always been here and will always be here. The broken treaties, removal from homelands, lost population, distribution of reservation lands to whites, and poverty brought about by the European invaders are deplored; but the writers see hope in the Indian accomplishments and resurgence of pride during recent years.

The authors of these essays are writers, historians, and tribal executives. Each identifies his or her self with a tribe or combination of tribes. However, nearly all have lived much of their lives away from the reservations and have achieved success in "white society." After considerable thought, I decided that this was the proper choice. The vast majority of non-Indians like myself are so ignorant of Indian history and thought that we need an "interpreter." Who better than someone who has stood in both camps. Be forewarned, the introduction of this book is terrible. It is inaccurate, condescending, and unnecessarily contradicts material in the essays. If you have any interest in Lewis and Clark, history, or those Americans we often call Indian; read this book. Discount the introduction and read the essays twice.

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West (Writer's Guide to Everyday Life Series)

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Not much help
Informative and Easy to Find Info
Title a bit misleading
One volume of a great series
Fascinating and valuable

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West (Writer's Guide to Everyday Life Series)
Candy Moulton
Manufacturer: Writer's Digest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0898798701

Customer Reviews:

Not much help.......2003-01-10

I recently purchased this book and was sorely disapointed. A better title might be "A GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE WILD WEST FOR PEOPLE WHO NEVER HEARD OF THE WILD WEST". Anyone who feels even remotely qualified to write anything about the west already has more information on hand than this book has to offer.

Informative and Easy to Find Info.......2002-07-15

If your on a deadline and need info quickly or just don't have the time to search volume after volume for the info that gives your work the extra flavor of authenticity then this book is a must! Sure the info is available in other western reference books but you would literally have to search hundreds of volumes to locate all the facts and info included in this single book. So why make it so hard on yourself? This one book will put the info at your fingertips!

Title a bit misleading.......2001-04-05

I use this book sometimes and I like it, but I have just a few problems with it. I got this book because it was titled "Everyday Life in..." and that's what I expected to find. A 'snapshot' of everyday life. Despite its title, at least 1/3 of the book is more about the westward expansion and American Indian culture in general, which is available in greater detail from numerous other books and web sites. For an overview of western history and culture, this book is fine. But for "everyday life," a far superior book on the same topic is "Seeking Pleasure in the Old West" by David Dary.

One volume of a great series.......2001-03-17

Not just for writers, but historians, hobbyists, and anyone interested in the small details of life in other times. This volume, like the others in the series, includes chapters (with figures and illustrations) on food, clothing, family life, work, education, religion, leisure activities, social and political history, etc. Great for browsing, great for research. Recommended.

Fascinating and valuable.......1999-03-08

While this is designed as a one-stop resource for novelists and historians dealing with the American West, it is much more. It provides a vivid portrait of the frontier and those who settled the country. It is beautifully organized, supplies the telling detail, and belongs on the reference shelves of all libraries, and in the libraries of all collectors of Old West materials, and in all history collections dealing with early Americana.

Book Description

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background.

In CliffsNotes on My Antonia, you follow the story of Jim, an orphaned boy who travels to Nebraska to live with his grandparents. Upon arriving, Jim meets the uplifting, spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family that plans to farm on nearby, untamed land.

Honoring and celebrating the immigrant settlers of the American plains, Willa Cather's novel also succeeds as one of the finest romantic stories written in the United States. Other features that help you figure out this important work include

Life and background of the author
Analyses of a large cast of characters
A brief synopsis of the novel
Critical essays
A review section that tests your knowledge and suggests essay topics
A resource center that leads you to more great books and websites

Classic literature or modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

Customer Reviews:

This book is horrible!.......2004-07-02

This book is awful! I am being forced to read it because of school and it is pure torture! HELP! I have not learned anything from it, and men cannot write the way Willa Cather portrays Jim to think! HELP ME! THIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!

My Antonia.......1999-12-27

I thought the book had a lot of charm. It showed how much strength mankind had to form this great land. The trusting and helpful ways to each other in order to survive. The strength and struggles for freedom: to have a piece of the American dream. The comforts we take so much for granted are driven home, how very spoiled and soft we have become. It also helped me to appreciate our farmers of today they must still face the same challenges while we just go to the store in our cars and get what we want.

**Warning** Do Not Read This at Night.......1999-11-10

This book was so awful. I was supposed to read it for one of my classes and I have a quiz on this book today, but I fell asleep.I couldn't help it. That's how boring it was! Nothing interesting happens. I'm about halfway through it as of right now, but I don't think I want to continue.

Please, It's not that bad.......1999-10-19

I thought My Antonia was an easy read. It was short, and although it could get a little boring at times and the ending wasn't as great as it could have been, it was entertaining. It's point was to give an account of nineteenth-century farm life while still being entertaining. It achieves both. It seems like man of the people critiquing this novel didn't actually read it.

This Book is not that good.......1999-10-09

I think if your gonna write a book it should be decent. This book hardly meets this critia. It goes into too much depth, and has too many "hidden" items that most people don't care about. You can waste your time on it if you like to read boring and wanna-be romantic books.

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