Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific by Robert M. Utley ISBN: 0-8050-5989-X Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: June, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Illuminates an important group of American explorers
Comment: My son's 4th grade social studies unit last year covered the Oregon Trail and westward expansion. I caught his enthusiasm and found this book to be an exhaustive, informative, and interesting work. It fills in a large gap in American history- the time between the Lewis and Clark expedetion, and the settling by pioneers of the Oregon and California territories. The mountain men were not just trappers, but were truly instrumental in determining the topography and geography of the West, and so gathering the knowledge that allowed emigrants to populate the area. A trip to the Grand Tetons this summer was enhanced by having read this book, as that area was of great importance to the fur trade and to westward expansion with the discovery of South Pass. Although the author's literary style is not as compelling as that of Stephen Ambrose, I still found the book interesting and worthwhile. The maps were valuable as well.
Rating: 4
Summary: Mountain Men and Manifest Destiny
Comment: In the years between 1804 and 1847, Americans explored the Louisiana Purchase, the Rocky Mountains, took California from Mexico, and colonized Oregon. And the explorers and trappers called mountain men were instrumental in all those events.
Utley starts his account with George Drouillard and the legendary John Colter, both members of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and concludes his main story with Kit Carson's actions in the Mexican-American War. However, this book is not a collection of biographies. Utley does provide sketches for some mountain man, the events they are most famous for, and, sometimes, details of their deaths. He does not provide any real details about their gear or trapping and fighting methods. Utley concerns himself with a broader theme: how the travels of mountain men filled in the maps of the west, expunged certain geographical fantasies from the public mind, and drew people west.
Some of the mountain men here are famous. Besides Colter, we meet Jim Bridger, trapper, Army scout, guide, and establisher of the famous trading post named after him. We also, briefly, meet Hugh Glass who once swore to kill Bridger after he and another trapper left Glass for dead after Glass was mauled by a grizzly. Kit Carson's adventures with John Fremont are discussed.
But Utley also covers less well-known, but important, mountain men. The greatest explorer of all, Jedediah Smith, trapped beaver mainly as a means to subsidize his extensive wanderings. Atypically literate for a mountain man, he kept extensive journals and maps -- most of which vanished after his death. Utley considers another trapper, Joe Walker, the most accomplished of all in the mountain man craft and, as an explorer, second only to Smith. Others had less august reputations. Edward Rose, a trapper who lived for many years with the Crow, was frequently sought as an interpreter but never really trusted. Too often negotiations he was involved with broke down, and he was suspected of mischief for private ends. Old Bill Williams was known as an eccentric mountain man. Jessie Fremont, John's wife, even accused him of cannibalism.
In their quest for beaver pelts, before changing fashion, overtrapping, and substitution of nutria made trapping untenable, the mountain men not only added to geographical knowledge but served as agents, intentionally and unintentionally, for American expansion to the Pacific. They traveled to Spanish California and helped bring it into the Union by their settlements there and their actions in the Mexican-American War. But California was not the only Pacific territory whose national ownership was disputed. American mountain men, and this book is concerned with American citizens or those mountaineers who served American interests, competed with the English Hudson Bay Company in the Columbia River basin. Their knowledge inspired and guided missionaries and, later, settlers into what became the Oregon Territory. British interests there were supplanted, and some mountain men, like Joe Meek and Doc Newell, became important political figures in Oregon's early history.
Besides the broad story of mountaineers as the vanguard of American expansion west, there are other things of interest here. Taos, New Mexico and its importance to fur trading is covered. Utley talks about the little known 1823 punitive expedition against the Arikara. Writer Washington Irving shows up as an important source for this period of history.
Though it is not a main point of the book, Utley does talk some about relations between the mountain men and Indians. The attitudes ranged from racism to toleration to admiration. Some tribes, like the Blackfeet, were constant foes of the mountain men. Others, like the Shoshone and the Nez Perce (at least during the time of this history), were almost always friendly.
Utley uses his last chapter to wrap up the loose ends of some of his subjects' lives and the ultimate nature of their contributions to American development. Cartographer Peter Dana has the final say with an interesting chapter on how the book's extensive topographical maps, detailing the travels of various mountain men and the fur trade in general, were prepared from satellite photos.
Utley organizes the book along geographical lines and accounts of how particular routes of travel were developed. This leads to some confusion since he jumps back and forth in time. However, Utley's clear style and a well-done index help keep things straight. The footnotes are not only extensive but full of useful information.
Rating: 4
Summary: Formidable achievement but not for the uninitiated
Comment: 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.
 |
Title: The Mountain Men by George Laylock ISBN: 1558214542 Publisher: The Lyons Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West by Dale Lowell Morgan ISBN: 0803251386 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: December, 1964 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: A Rendezvous Reader: Tall, Tangled, And, True Tales of the Mountain Men, 1805-1850 by James H. Maguire, Peter Wild, Donald A. Barclay ISBN: 0874805392 Publisher: Univ of Utah Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: July, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Jim Bridger, Mountain Man by Stanley Vestal ISBN: 0803257201 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Give Your Heart to the Hawks: A Tribute to the Mountain Men by Winfred Blevins ISBN: 0380006944 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: October, 1982 List Price(USD): $5.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
