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Title: The American West: A New Interpretive History by Robert V. Hine, John MacK Faragher ISBN: 0-300-07835-8 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: I am offended
Comment: "...When Cartier met natives along the Newfoundland coast they greeted him with the only European words they knew - aca nada, "Nothing is here" in Spanish."
This is WRONG. I can't believe Hine and Faragher call themselves historians.
The name Canada comes from a chance meeting between Jacques Cartier and two young native Indians in 1535. The two Indians were showing Cartier the route to their village, Stadacona but they called their village "Kanata", (the Huron-Iroquois word for village). The name stuck and Kanata was then used by Cartier and other explorers to apply to an increasingly larger area. In 1547 everything north of the St. Lawrence River was designated as "Canada." The first official use of the name was in 1791 when Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada. On July 1, 1867 - the date of the country's confederation - the name "Canada" was assumed.
Rating: 4
Summary: A very good book, whose point of view will irritate many
Comment: On its own terms, this book is a huge success.
It synthesizes the past 30 years of serious historical research which revolutionized the presentation of the history of the American West by rescuing the experiences of groups who had been relatively ignored by standard interpretations. Indians, women, blacks, Latinos, Asians, workers are dealt with at length and with sympathy.
The research of anti-capitalist/neo-Marxist, anti-imperialist and pro-environmental historians is summarized and we can see the importance of the challenges they raise to old style historians.
The range of topics is impressive, and the writing is lively and intelligent. (I'd say this is suitable for the college junior/senior level.) The bibliography is amazingly up to date.
The reason why I don't give it a 5 is its lack of balance. At times the authors editorialize crudely--with dismissive judgements ("nonsense") and exclamation points galore to show us when we should boo or hiss.
Less empowered (victim) groups are too often treated as noble, and the majority as vile. This is the Achilles heel of a generation of historians who went into this field with strong orientations and sympathies.
But even more than the distaste for the majority groups, the biggest drawback is the relative lack of attention paid to them. I'm not saying, in an old fashioned way, that they should extol the "achievement" or mindlessly glorify the "Anglos" or capitalists. There is too much solid evidence here that the achievements were not 100% beneficial and that the white males could act and think in apalling ways. But they were the majority actors and this book can too often lose sight of that. At times it feels like the center is missing.
Still, it's an impressive, thought-provoking book. (The section on attempts by cowboys to unionize should be treasured by anybody who was ever spoon fed the Turner thesis.) But it probably should be the second book to give a neophyte, not the first.
Rating: 5
Summary: A new and highly recommended interpretative survey.
Comment: This new interpretive history of the American west is recommended reading for college-level students of American history. Drawings, posters, photos and illustrations pepper what remains a panoramic view of history and characters which succeeds in documenting some of the major trends and personalities of the West. Highly recommended.
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Title: The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado by Elliott West ISBN: 0700610294 Publisher: University Press of Kansas Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West by Patricia N. Limerick ISBN: 0393304973 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 April, 1988 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West by Richard White ISBN: 0806125675 Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Oxford History of the American West by Clyde A., II Milner, Carol A. O'Connor, Martha A. Sandweiss ISBN: 0195112121 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The New Encyclopedia of the American West by Howard Lamar, Howard Roberts Lamar ISBN: 0300070888 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
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