Book Description
Stone has created an interwoven pageant of stories of the great westward drive which, in a few rousing decades, settled a continent and gave the United States dimensions of which its founders hardly dreamed.
Customer Reviews:
Great writing. Fascinating Info.......2007-06-27
Everyone I know that has read this book has loved it. If you are interested in learning about settling of the west, take a chance on this book.
Men to Match My Mountains The Opening of the Far West, 1840-1900.......2007-05-12
A Great book, that really informs the reader. Hard to put down.
A Page Turner with More Adventure and History than in any Text Book.......2007-04-03
First, this is not my normal genre, but came as a highly recommended book. If one wants to learn about the immigration and exploration of the west, then one can not go wrong by reading and enjoying this wonderful history lesson in story form. As the title of the book indicates, it took a special stock of men (and women) to overcome the many obstacles that the mountains (and desert) requires of one. The book takes you on this journey from the viewpoint of the true early explorers, and adventures, to just people trying to make a better life, or escaping religious persecution. Either group provides the struggles required of all and the high adventures to get where they eventually landed.
It is hard to imagine that prior to year of 1830, that there were probably less than 5,000 non-Native Indians living in the far west. Even more so that most Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, Russians, (and others) that thought the far west presented far too much danger to even attempt the crossing, and once there, not much to reward your effort. This was based on some facts as the story unfolds from the Donner Party tragedy, and Indian attacks, to continued religious persecution, and vigilante groups of early settlements. All told though, there is only greed or great opportunity that can overcome a rational repugnance of such hardships to justify the costs which to overcome man's avoidance of living in such extremes. That greed comes in the form of gold and silver for many that ultimately made the effort to expand the far west.
All in, this is a page turner with both drama, color, and interwoven events to keep the story (i.e. immigration) moving along to the far west that we know today. A wonderful and educational story indeed.
Wonderfully Entertaining.......2006-12-15
What a great read--fantastic story-telling of Western history. It captures the sense of adventure, danger, and especially, perseverance on the part of great men like Sutter down to the individuals rushing to the gold. It provides good lessons for all of us in what it took to build the American West. I highly recommend it!
match mountains.......2006-11-10
I bought this book as a gift for a fellow aficianado of Western U.S. history. It's one of the best ever published, as Mr. Stone delivers historical facts in a prose that makes it come alive. The concurrent time periods of each area's development is easy to follow, and mentally keep track of, as one enjoys the stories. It reminds the reader of just about every western movie he's ever seen!
Book Description
A celebration of the Mountain Man A poetic tribute to the dauntless first Westernersthe mountain menand their incredible adventures. Here, among many, are the stories of: John Colter, who, in 1808, naked and without weapons or food, escaped captivity by the Blackfeet and ran and walked 250 miles to Fort Lisa at the mouth of the Yellowstone River Hugh Glass, who was mauled by a grizzly, left for dead by his companions, and crawled three hundred miles to Fort Kiowa on the Missouri Kit Carson, who ran away from home at age seventeen, became a legendary mountain man in his twenties and served as scout and guide for John C. Fremonts westward explorations of the 1840s
Customer Reviews:
Definitely a worthwhile read, entertaining, authentic.......2007-06-06
I highly recommend this book very authentic, but entertaining, enthralling and compelling. My advice is to get the paperback, and mark it up as you go thru, as you will want to return to it often for reference or refreshing.
History with a heart beat........2006-10-04
This book is much more than just a history of the fur trade and mountain men. In fact, if you read the Preface, Win states that he wishes to portray the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the mountain men from a subjective point of view. He accomplishes the task. It's a wonderful read about the mountain men (not ALL of the mountain men but a select, representative few) and their lives. You may ask, how accurate is his subjective view. The answer lies in the fact that Win is well researched in the lives of the mountain man, well learned in the mountain ways, and skilled enough to give these historical figures a heartbeat. As mentioned before, the number of mountain men chronicled in this book is limited. So, if you are looking for a good primer on individual mountain men, then maybe "The Mountain Men" by Laycock would be a better place to start. Otherwise, this is an excellent book and not as dry as some of the books on individual mountain men.
The Mountain Men .......2006-08-08
Never have so few lived such adventurous lives! During the era of the Mountain Men, lasting from 1806 to 1843, a few hundred Americans trapped or traded for beaver in the Rocky Mountains. Blevins tells the romantic story of some of these men, especially those who made their living around the northern Rockies in Wyoming, Utah, and Montana.
The famous stories about the Mountain Men are told here: John Colter's run, Hugh Glass's encounter with a grizzly, Jedediah Smith's long overland journeys to California, the peregrinations of Jim Bridger. The lives, customs, and tortured language of the Mountain Men, including the debauchery of rendevous and the joys of Indian women and gorging on buffalo meat are well described. The author celebrates the Mountain Men and if you're not familar with the era and its heroes this is a good place to start -- although with the understanding that you're not getting the whole story. The fur trappers of the Southwest, including Ewing Young and Kit Carson, are scarcely mentioned. Nor do the British competitors of the Americans receive their due. But the untamed West in all its pristine glory is well-described in "Give your Heart to the Hawks."
From the vast literaturee about the Mountain Men. "Across the Wide Missouri" by Bernard DeVoto is probably the (difficult and irritating) classic of the genre.
Smallchief
The Alumni of Rocky Mountain College.......2005-06-18
Winfred Blevins' `Give Your Heart to the Hawks' is exactly what its sub title claims - a tribute to the Mountain Men. It is neither a historical novel nor a pure history. Rather, it is accurate history, albeit with Blevins' interpretation of the thoughts and emotions that the mountain men were experiencing during some of their most dangerous and daring exploits added. This technique removes the book from the roles of strict history, but works well in creating the tribute that the author intended, for his goal was not simply to chronicle the bones of their history, but to bring to life their wild and free existence and allow the reader to enter into the spirit of the mountain man's life.
Blevins does not attempt a comprehensive account of the mountain men. Some are covered extensively, like John Colter, the prototype mountain man, Jim Bridger, and Jed Smith, the most atypical and perhaps greatest of the mountain men. Others, like Old Bill Williams, Joe Walker, and Kit Carson are barely covered or mentioned only in passing. Blevins does not cover the mountain men of the southwest at all. Instead, he illuminates his chosen subjects in depth, choosing to fully explore the life that the mountain men lived rather than broadly covering the entire scope of their collective history.
To recreate the wild drama of the mountain man's life, Blevins tells some of the most thrilling tales of the era, like John Colter's desperate naked run from Indian braves pursuing him for sport, Hugh Glass' amazing solo trek through 300 miles of wilderness without weapons or any tools for survival after being left for dead when mauled by a grizzly, or Jed Smith's daring crossings of the desert and mountains to find a land route to California. He writes of these men, "Any man who survived for several years as a trapper, taking responsibility for his own survival alone in the wilds, had been schooled thoroughly by the Rocky Mountains. ...He had graduated from Rocky Mountain College, a pragmatic university that gave no degrees, but flunked men into their graves." Between the various stories of specific mountain men, he includes interludes that detail important aspects of their life and trade - trapping, yarning, rendezvous, buffalo - cuisine premiere, mountain craft, mountain mating, and trappers and Indians are a few of the interesting subjects of mountain life dealt with in these interludes. He also includes a few colorful accounts written by the rare, literate mountain man detailing their unique life. He succeeds admirably in breathing life into this too often neglected period of amazing individuals who blazed the way for the westward expansion of the American nation.
While Blevins' writing is not always stellar, he manages to create an effective and stirring tribute to the wild individuals who chose to live free in the Rocky Mountains. No one who is interested in the period should miss it. Both students of the period of the mountain men and fur trade and those looking for a good introduction to the subject will find `Give Your Heart to the Hawks' a fascinating and rewarding reading experience.
Theo Logos
A gem.......2004-12-27
Blevins exhibits that rare and talented writing ability of blending human feelings and emotions with documented historical literature.
The author breathes life into the many fur trappers who romped and stomped their way west of the Missouri in search of beaver pelts and the ensuing exploration efforts thereof, from the early 1800's to the trade's demise in 1840.
The reader senses the anguish and pain of John Colter as he outruns the Blackfeet; feels the torment and frustrations of Jedediah Smith losing scores of trappers to hostile Indians, along with his relentless and scrupulous efforts to locate water in the deserts during the course of his expeditions; the incredible doggedness of Hugh Glass out surviving the most famous grizzly attack known to western literature and numerous other accounts of survival (and non survival) in this time frame.
Jim Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Robert Campbell, the Sublette brothers, the missionaries, ups and downs of the fur trade, intense competition between the fur companies, Indian antagonisms and friendships, it's all here. Blevins puts you in their shoes (moccasins).
A wonderful read.
Book Description
To know how the West was really won, start with the exploits of these unsung buckskin heroes.
Customer Reviews:
Survey of the Mountain Men.......2006-11-10
This is an excellent book to choose for a survey of the mountain man era. It covers all of the famous individuals, most with their own chapter. It also has some excellent presentations on various tools of the trade including their manufacture and use. In summary, a hard book to beat for a survey of that era and the individuals who made the era what is was.
Be warned, this is a teaser........2006-07-23
If you're interested in the lore of mountain men, then this book is for you. However, be warned that it contains just enough material to tease you and then, you'll want to continue your research with other books. This is the book that hooked me (well this and the movie Jeremiah Johnson). Laycock's book begins with a brief introduction on the history of St. Louis and the people that forged the youthful fur industry. Then, in the following chapters, you'll be introduced to a mountain man and his exploits per chapter. You'll read about Old Bill Williams, Jim Bridger, Jed Smith, Oz Russell, and more. Just to entice you further, Laycock includes these mini-chapters on how the mountain men survived such as: how he built boats, how he cached supplies, how he worked leather, started fires, built shelters, etc. Once I read this, my next books were on the lives of Osbourne Russell and Jed Smith. This is an interesting and tragic period in American History and one well worth researching.
Excellent Introduction to Mountain Men and their Lifestyle.......2006-01-23
Great introduction to the life of Mountain Men in a mere 240 pages. The book starts with several introductory chapters of how Mountain Men got started virtually with Lewis and Clark and then with various fur companies with such men as Manuel Lisa. The author then discusses their lifestyle, the mountains, what trapping was like, how they trapped beaver and their relationships with the Indians. The bulk of the rest of the book contains numerous short chapters on the most famous of the mountain men such as John Colter (perhaps the greatest), Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, Tom Fiztpatrick, Kit Carson, James Beckworth, the Sublette brothers and several more. What makes the book unique are numerous intervening short sections discussing in detail, with pictures, the equipment or materials the trappers used. Everything from Bull boats, the various types of rifles including the famous Hawken (flint versus percussion), traps, leather clothes, tools and how their leather covers were made as well mocassins. The only negative is that some of the tall tales, which the Mountain Men wre famous for, are not always discriminated. An example is James Beckworth's claim that he ran 95 miles in a single day to escape a band of Indians, and another claimed they covered 150 miles in two days. Stonewall Jackson's corps was famous for covering 30 - 35 miles on relatively good roads, thus it is impossible to accept these numbers by the trappers who were in broken country. But overall, an excellent introduction to Mountain Men, each of which seemed to have several stories about running into a grizzly bear.
Real Men.......2003-10-29
If you love stories of the old West, this book is a must read!George Laycock does a nice job of giving us a good overview of this time period in our Western History. The book tells much about those days of trapping and exploring when the West was an unknown and unmapped area. In addition to telling the stories of several individual characters like John Colter, Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass, Jeidiah Smith and others, the author takes time to explain the fur trapping business. There are several sections in the book explaining weapons, traps, boats, clothing, tools, etc. The result is that the reader gets a good insight into what these men did and how they did it. The one drawback might be that some of the character studies are a bit short, often leaving the reader wanting more information. However, for a general overview of an important time in our early history, this is a wonderful book. I'd like to see this as required reading in our schools.
A Great Mountain Man Book For Your Library.......2002-01-29
I purchased a hard back copy of this book in the early 1980's. It was then, and still is one of my favorite books on the life of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trappers of the early 19th century. Mr. Laycock did a great job of covering the life of these adventurous trappers. It would take volumes to cover it all but this book is a great condensed version. If I were going to recommend a single book to someone who had no knowledge of the Mountain Men, and wanted to learn of their lifestyles, this would be the book. It is an easy read, lots of great photos and illustrations, and it offers a high rate of accuracy. Also included are some brief biographies of some of the famous mountain men such as Jim Bridger and John Colter, and others. This book tells how they applied their trade and the hardships they faced doing it. This is a great book. I assume the paperback version offered will have the same photographs and illustrations. However, my hard back copy has great color in it and I don't know if the paper back will contain color photographs. Anyway, it is my opinion that this is a great book.
Book Description
This encyclopedic guide to the equipment of the trappers and fur traders who opened the Old West is a unique reference work that can be classified either as history or as archaeology. It describes and discusses hundreds of iron artifacts—rifles, shotguns, hatchets, axes, knives, traps, and miscellaneous tools—used by the mountain men from the early 1800s to the mid 1840s.
Thirty years' research went into the writing of this book. In addition to examining the diaries and letters of the trappers themselves, and the business records of fur-trading companies, the author also tracked down the records and catalogs of the gunsmiths, ironmongers, and other manufacturers who supplied the early traders. He observed most of the surviving artifacts, identified their makers, and traced the evolution of the styles and designs of the weapons and tools, usually from European origins.
Illustrated with over 400 drawings, the book begins with a useful background history of the western fur trade. Among the sections that will appeal to special groups of readers are chapters on firearms and blacksmithing and an appendix on the “Historic Objects as Sources of History.”
Customer Reviews:
Buy with confidence!!!!.......2007-05-07
Russell has done exhaustive work on this subject and this book is a must have for anyone interested in the Mountain Men and fur trade era.
Great resource.......2004-12-16
Great resource for study of mountain men, early contact between Indians and whites. Useful in the study of metal artifacts of the fur trade, axes, traps, spearpoints, arrowheads, harpoons, knives and daggers, highly recommended.
Awesome Resource and Read.......2002-12-08
I used this book for my graduate seminar paper on the Fur Trade. I loved all the information it gave about the tools of the Mountain Men. Don't let the fact that I'm in grad school scare off the read though. My father-in-law wants a copy now and he only has an Associates and is a down home kind of guy. It's definitely not just for students. This is an absolutely wonderful book.
Valuable resource.......2000-05-11
This book is chucked full of great fur trade information. It has many, many line drawings and could only be better with a collection of photos of actual artifacts.
If you are a fan of the Rocky Mountain fur trade era of the early 19th century like I am, you will find this book to be a valuable resource.
Good line drawings. Authentic information........1996-11-27
Discussion of manufacture, use and history of the tools
of the mountain man's trade. Many line drawing illustrations
supported by solid text. Reasonably complete and accurate
source of information.
Amazon.com
It's true, Robert Utley writes, that mountain men such as "Crazy Bill" Williams and Jeremiah "Liver-Eating" Johnson were an unlearned, unwashed, drunk, and violent bunch who tore a bloody swath across the then-unconquered American West from the 1810s to the 1840s. Yet their travels across deserts and plains and over high mountains yielded a huge body of geographical knowledge that would enable American pioneers to cross the Mississippi and traverse the continent in relative security. Utley, a historian with a fluent narrative style, tells the stories of hard-fighting men like Jim Bridger, Benjamin Bonneville, Kit Carson, and Joseph Walker, whose names now figure prominently on maps of the region but are otherwise little remembered.
Customer Reviews:
Great base-level review of history of the mountain men.......2006-01-22
Utley provides plenty of color mixed with easy reading and a biographical narrative style.
The biographical style, with each chapter focused on one or two mountain men, brings the personal color and larger-than-life characters of these rugged individualists to the forefront. It keeps the story as history moving forward at the same time, with the irony that these runaways from Eastern U.S. civilization often wound up serving as scouts for the U.S. Army, the vanguard of the very civilization they had earlier fled.
Scholarly Approach, but Somewhat Dry.......2005-03-12
A Life Wild and Perilous is a thorough and scholarly work of the mapping and settlement of the West. However, it is not dedicated exclusively to the mountain men and how they opened the path to the Pacific, which is the stated premise of the book. I recommend this if you are interested in the efforts of fur business and the military in opening the West, but not as a description of the life of the mountain men. At the times, the detail and prose bog down the narrative, but this book is educational nevertheless.
And You Think You've Roughed It!.......2004-12-31
Robert Utley's "A Life Wild and Perilous..." is a wonderful story of just about the most iconoclastic Americans produced by this country of ours.
The Mountain Men were risk takers, rugged individualists, optimists and American patriots rolled into one (although being patriots did not interfere with some of them taking Mexican or British citizenship when it would help them settle in parts of the West that were not ours before the Mexican-American War).
Utley begins right after the Lewis and Clark expedition, when two of those intrepid expedition members returned to the new lands in search of beaver pelts. The story progresses through the fur trading companies, the likes of Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and ends shortly after the time of Charles Fremont. By the time of the Gold Rush, the mountain men had spent their moment, the victims to changing fashions (beaver pelts were in demand for men's hats primarily) and over trapping as well as growing popular interest in settlement and exploitation of the land.
This book is mostly a chapter examination of the doings of the most famous of the mountain men. Their hard life in the open, scrapes and alliances with natives (many had Indian wives and families), habits of trade and merriment and their epic journeys from there to there are explored in well written and at times riveting detail.
Utley has added to an understanding of the American West by bringing back to life the men who established trade routes, guided the first settlers and importantly mapped and explored the great interior lands of the American continent. This is a great and interesting story told well.
Formidable achievement but not for the uninitiated.......2002-10-13
This is a serious work that gives a complete
chronicle of every detail you could ever want
to know about how the mountain men lived
their perilous lives.
Color maps are a very helpful addition too. It
amazes me how so many books like this
actually leave out any pictorial illustration.
I do wish they were reproduced with the state boundaries
superimposed over them to give you a better idea
where the locations are. (Yes of course those states
weren't founded yet, but we are reading this book at
a time after they WERE; it would help immensely to
know what state the Green River runs through, for example....)
Author Utley appears to have a profound love for the
subject about which he reveals no end of knowledge.
It would be a little difficult to recommend this though
to the casual reader, mainly because Utley doesn't attempt to
reach out to a wide audience. He assumes
a predisposition to the subject, making this book
perhaps not an easy introduction to the mountain men.
There is nothing at all wrong with that, but I feel the
need to take off one point (from what would otherwise
be a sure five-star grade) for his focus on concrete detail,
at the expense of placing the subject into a larger context,
to give the broader significance of what the mountain
men did and what it meant for the country as a whole
-- how their accomplishments shaped our attitudes towards
the idea of westward expansion, and changed (if at all) our
symbolic image of ourselves as a people. Maybe
they didn't change our attitudes about ourselves
at all.
Exellent book..........2002-04-03
I've read several about this time period and this one was very good, easy to read, interesting.
Average customer rating:
- Important Figure in the West
- this was a well tought out book
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Jedediah Smith and the Mountain Men of the American West (World Explorers)
John Logan Allen
Manufacturer: Chelsea House Publications
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Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West (Bison Book)
ASIN: 0791013197 |
Customer Reviews:
Important Figure in the West.......2007-06-03
Jedediah Smith is one of the best known of the famous mountain men and that means he's hardly known to most Americans. His life has the adventure of a wild west tale and it's true. This is one of the best works on Smith and if you want a good read and to improve your understanding of the contribution of the mountain men to the development of the American West, you must read this.
this was a well tought out book.......1999-10-16
i thought this book was very well written and i learned a lot about jedediah smith and after i read this book i went to my local library and checked out another book on jedediah smith i also learned about other pioneers
Book Description
In 1807, a year after Lewis and Clark returned from the shores of the Pacific, groups of trappers and hunters began to drift West to tap the rich stocks of beaver and to trade with the Native nations. Colorful and eccentric, bold and adventurous, mountain men such as John Colter, George Drouillard, Hugh Glass, Andrew Henry, and Kit Carson found individual freedom and financial reward in pursuit of pelts. Their knowledge of the country and its inhabitants served the first mapmakers, the army, and the streams of emigrants moving West in ever-greater numbers. The mountain men laid the foundations for their own displacement, as they led the nation on a westward course that ultimately spread the American lands from sea to sea.
Customer Reviews:
Ripoff!!.......2007-10-01
This is Utley's previous book "A Life Wild and Perilous" with a new title and cover. Don't buy it if you already have the other(as I did.)
Average customer rating:
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Trappers & Mountain Men (Events in American History)
Anastasia Suen
Manufacturer: Rourke Publishing
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ASIN: 1600441343 |
Book Description
Fascinated by the land of endless horizons, sunshine, and the open road, Richard Grant spent fifteen years wandering throughout the United States, never spending more than three weeks in one place, and getting to know America's nomads—truckers, tramps, rodeo cowboys, tie-dyed T-shirt concert followers, flea market traders, retirees who live year-round in their RVs, and the murderous Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA).
In a richly comic travelogue, Grant uses these lives and his own to examine the myths and realities of the wandering life, and its contradiction with the sedentary American dream. "Forget the white picket fence, the house in the suburbs, the monthly mortgage payment and all that crap," says a truck driver Grant rode with on one of his adventures. "Americans dream about burning down the house and saddling up the horse and it's been that way ever since the plains were knee deep in buffalo shit."
Along with a personal account, American Nomads traces the history of wandering in the New World, through vividly told stories of frontiersmen, fur trappers and cowboys, Comanche and Apache warriors, all the way back to the first Spanish explorers who crossed the continent. What unites these disparate characters, as they range back and forth across the centuries, is a stubborn conviction that the only true freedom is to roam across the land.
Customer Reviews:
Strategic Wanderlust.......2007-02-18
A great first book. American Nomads is a true outsider's depiction of the idiosyncratic modern ways of America contrasted with its nomadic history.
And coming from an unknown British writer, it is refreshing not to have a high-falutin', supercilious attitude coming at you in the writing.
What you get here are historical stories about nomads such as Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, the Apaches, the Comanches, Joseph Walker (mountain man) and Everett Ruess alternating with contemporary episodics of bullriders, truckers, senior RV'ers, and weekend mountain men.
If you need any reason to laugh uncontrollably, Grant gives it to you with his story of a psycho hitchhiker named BJ who is the definition of misanthropic (Chapter 3) and a hippie named Medicine Wing who, through his LSD-induced fireside dance-tranze, achieves nirvana at the Rainbow Gathering (Chapter 9).
Reading this book is an adventure, even if the one who reads it is but a vicarious nomad. Highly recommended.
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
The Cloud Reckoner
Excellent Book.......2006-12-01
This was a fascinating, wonderful book. I learned so much about the people who live on the road, folks most of us don't know exist. Grants explores all kinds of different groups, from hippies to cowboys to rail riders to tramps. He even throws in the RV senior citizen crowd (though they don't seem to fit in, even though they fit the definition; I guess he felt he couldn't overlook them, but I would have rather he did). His history of past American nomads was fascinating. There are just so many elements he covers in this book, as well as all the issues these nomads face (e.g. how do you deal with having no woman in your life?).
I disagree with another reviewer who thought Grant was using the book as a way to brag about his own life. The bits about his own life are understated, if anything. And the research he's done, the groups of people he's hung out with, is impressive. I knew nothing about the Rainbow Gathering, so this was very interesting. And the mindset of some road tramps--where they don't want to accumulate money, so they give it away when they come upon a large amount--was very illuminating.
In all, I thought he covered this topic very well, showed nomadism from a variety of perspectives and delved deeply into many of the issues surrounding it.
Worth buying, worth reading.......2006-05-17
The subtitle really gives you an idea about the subjects covered in this book. The author talks about all kinds of nomadic people from colonial explorers to Dead Heads, old Indian tribes to their modern descendants, Cowboys, serial hitchhikers, pioneers, and RVers. The book is basically a series of unrelated stories, tied together by the fact that they all deal with nomads.
Some sections start to drag a little bit. Even if some parts of it are a little immature, as one reviewer pointed out, (Drunken rodeo cowboys running out of a convenience store with a twelve pack, jumping through a car window and speeding off, for example), it still held my interest. I thought it was interesting that this is all non-fiction-- there actually are people who live on the road for their whole lives.
Throughout the book, there are parts that are more than just observation of how things are. The author gives background information, both historical and character. He does a little bit of analysis at times. He gives a lot of commentary, both his own and that of the people he meets, about the viewpoint nomads have.
This book can also serve as a launching point for further reading. I've read Cabeza de Vaca's book about his travels in the Southwest, and I'm planning on eventually buying the biography of Joe Walker, the unsung mountain man/fur trader/explorer extraordinaire. Point is, there's a good bibliography if you wanted to go deeper into some of the characters in this book.
If you're interested in this kind of thing (the hobo, explorer, minimalist, hit the road and don't look back kind of thing, that is), I'd really reccomend this book. I haven't even had it for a year yet, and I've read it at least four or five times (partially because I'm too cheap to buy a new book, but mostly because I just think it so dang interesting).
I Enjoyed This Book.......2005-02-02
I picked this book up at a Waterstone's in Sheffield, under its U.K. title of Ghost Riders, and it brought me back to my hitch-hiking days in America. Grant, a Brit., gets "travel fever" and lights out on the same open road that Whitman, Twain, Jack London, Steinbeck, Kerouac, and scores of others celebrate in American lit. and popular culture. Grant gives us an up-dated version of what the American open road is all about c. 1990 to 2003, with truckers, Native Americans, Vietnam Vets, the utopian Rainbow Family, the Elephant-like migrations of the SUV crowd and all the nameless, homeless, motel drifters and doorway leaners that we usually pass by in a blaze of chrome and a tinkle of "Route 66." Grant gives these people names and shows a bit of their desperation as well as their triumph in living a life of freedom in the post-modern USA. Grant also gives us hints of his own unhappy life and how all the loose ends are finally tied together by the return of his roving lady love. For anyone who has spent a day with their thumb out and a night camped under the desert stars, this book will be a reminder, and for those who haven't, this book might tempt them to give it a shot. This was a great read. Not as light as it first appeared, especially in the section on the history of the Native Americans, America's first nomads.
Herodotus On the Road.......2004-07-28
American Nomads was part of my summer reading list, a little lighter reading than my usual fare I thought. While Grant's book delivered as an enjoyable and swift read that was not too heavy, it also surprised me with its grasp of Western history and valuable insights.
Richard Grant is a Brit with an inclination to ramble. He fell in love with the wide-open spaces and endless road of the American West, and began a life of rambling all over the West at will. When he ran out of money, he returned to England and sold articles about his adventures until he raise another stake to come back and repeat the process. This book, his first, is the logical outcome of that process.
Grant artfully blends his own adventures on the road with historical examples illustrating the nomadic instinct that the open spaces of the West seem to draw out from those who live there. His chapters on conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, mountain man Joe Walker, and the Comanche tribe are particularly well researched and written. (His writing on the conquistador has inspired me to read Cabeza de Vaca's own Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America.)These subjects are well chosen, both as dynamic interesting stories, and for their instructiveness to Grant's theme.
Along side of these historical set-pieces, Grant tells of his own adventures on the road with psychotic hitchhikers, old school hobos, the drunken dregs of the Rainbow family, and methed-out crazy rodeo bull riders, among others. He ponders on how so many of the nomads that he meets in the West tend to be societies walking wounded , and notes the hardships and misunderstandings of being a nomad in a largely sedentary culture. But this is no whining treatise. Grant's joy in and love for a wandering life in the beautiful empty spaces of the West is palpable, and if you feel any inclination in that direction, possibly contagious.
If you love road books and well-done history, consider American Nomads a must read.
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Book Description
John Jacob Astor’s dream of empire took shape as the American Fur Company. At Astor’s retirement in 1834, this corporate monopoly reached westward from a depot on Mackinac Island to subposts beyond the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers.
Fur Traders, Trappers, and Mountain Men of the Upper Missouri focuses on eighteen men who represented the American Fur Company and its successors in the Upper Missouri trade. Their biographies have been compiled from the classic ten-volume Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, edited by LeRoy R. Hafen.
These chapters bring back movers and shapers of a great venture: Ramsay Crooks, the mountain man who headed the American Fur Company after Astor; Kenneth McKenzie, “King of the Missouri;” Gabriel Franchere, survivor of the Astorian disaster; Charles Larpenteur, commander of Fort Union and fur-trade chronicler. Here, too, are the fiery William Laidlaw, ambitious James Kipp and John Cabanne Sr., diplomatic David Dawson Mitchell and Malcolm Clark, goutish James A. Hamilton (Palmer), controversial John F. A. Sanford and Francis A. Chardon, easy-going William Gordon, and ill-fated William E. Vanderburgh. Completing this memorable cast are Alexander Culbertson, skilled hunter; Auguste Pike Vasquez, mountain man; Henry A. Boller, educated clerk; and Jean Baptiste Moncravie, trader and raconteur.
Customer Reviews:
Great source for biographical info.......2006-02-04
This is another volume culled from the 10-volume MOUNTAIN MEN AND THE FUR TRADE OF THE FAR WEST by LeRoy R. Hafen. The men chosen for inclusion here were all associated with the fur trade in the Upper Missouri region. Some of the trappers and traders dealt with are John F.A. Sanford, Charles Larpenteur, Alexander Culbertson, William Laidlaw, and J.B. Moncravie. Personalities run the gamut from honorable and intelligent (Moncravie and Kenneth McKenzie, for example) to brave and able (just about everybody). The biographies are encyclopedic: all known pertinent facts are given, but not expanded on. I wish for this volume Hafen had perhaps broadened the category for inclusion a bit, because the book is about half the length of companion volumes; most of the biographies are only a few pages long. Other than that, it's an excellent source for biographical information on important figures of the Upper Missouri trade.
Commendable portrayals.......2001-08-15
This book offers some very good, concise descriptions of eighteen lesser known fur trappers,traders and mountain men of the early American west. After reading several books on this subject myself,there were some names I never came across before who were very instrumental during this time period: James Kipp, Gabriel Franchere, William Laidlaw, David Dawson, William Gordon and John Sanford to mention a few. Each one of these men's lives had obstacles of hardships, disasters, frustrations, etc. to overcome and all had something to do with the founding and development of the early American west in one way or another. It was a fun book to read and the bibliographies in each chapter simply 'whet the appetite' to read more about these interesting early frontiersmen.
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