Pacific Northwest Books - Page 6

California: An Interpretive History

James J. Rawls, Walton Bean

List Price: $55.40 By: Mcgraw-Hill College Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $0.96

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

does "interpretive" mean neglectful? or just PC? 1 out of 5 stars.
15 of 29 people found this review helpful.

It is true that UC Berkeley is a top ranked school for History. Sadly, this UC Professor misses the mark. This interpretive history does do many aspects of California History justice, but it completely neglects or distorts certain other facts in Early Californian History. The men who wrote it would do well to get a hold of some primary source martial of the earlier times they write about (journals of pioneers and settlers, for example.) But they probably won't, not even for future editions... If they did so, they might find out how wrong they are on a few of their topics and views held by some 19th century Californians immigrants. Also, it seems that they fail to emphasize the dubious nature of some of the late land grants & claims on the verge of the American take over from Mexico. Perhaps I am too harsh and they will consider the impact of the "Mormon Battalion" or the impact of the ship "Brooklyn". Or Inland Empire farming by Sikhs.

In an effort to paint an "inclusive" history (where only the Anglo is the bad guy,) the authors focus on discriminatory practices by whites against Chinese immigrants; yet neglect to take a hard look at graft and oppression Chinese immigrants faced at the hands of other Chinese. While the whites were certainly discriminatory, the Chinese immigrant was harmed and taken advantage of other Chinese immigrants as well. But it's less glamorous to take on those issues and much more self-righteous to point a finger by playing a race card. (If one human harms another, I guess it only matters if they are of different ethnicities...)

The authors also point to the racist-supremacist view of the Anglo-Saxon Republic but fail to point out that the same was true of the Mexican-Catholic government. When Mexico held California, non-Catholics could not own property (which is why the Scotsman, Gilroy converted.) Furthermore, the decline of Native American inhabitants of California under the Spanish & Mexican regimes could be more strongly articulated... but that's not popular to talk about. Lastly, while I am pleased that they did an adequate job of covering the earlier discrimination against Japanese immigrants, the Japanese internment, and Korematsu v. US, they completely neglect the Sikhs, and a landmark case of U.S. v. Bhagat Sign Thind. Obviously, this book is written for the current vogue in History etiquette. Rather than trying for circumspection and providing a durable history based on objectivity, they settle for current interpretation... which leads makes one feel history is not compelling or relevant if it simply changes with the modern political mood.

Editorial Review:

This lively and provocative history of California offers an unparalleled account of contemporary California, the events of the late 80s and early 90s, as well as expanded coverage of social and cultural history, particularly on the post-1960s.

Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon

Edward Dolnick

List Price: $28.95 By: Thorndike Press Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $20.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Down the Great Unknown 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book was informative but not a real "page turner". The author went off on tangents often that took away from the story at hand. It was not a bad book, but it was not full of the adventure that you would have expected the trip to have been.

Too many digressions ... 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a pretty decent book for the newcomer who has never read anything about Powell. I found it less entertaining than my fellow reviewers though, as it follows the tedium of the daily journals a little too closely. I also found the narrative to be interspersed with too many digressions. These range from opinions of the Green/Colorado river by modern rafting experts to accounts of other early rafting expeditions, and a lengthy 2-chapter segment on the American Civil war and Battle of Shiloh. This latter exercise contributes nothing to the book, by the way! The reader is also left in the dark about the Native American peoples, Mormon settlers, and miners who inhabited this area at the same point in time ... Really, it is as if the expedition were done in a vacuum. Even worse was the lack of information on 9 of the 10 men who took part in the expedition. While there is more than enough about John Wesley Powell, readers get only sketchy details about the lives of the other 9 men. Even the simplest details like where these men were born is left out, nor are we given much about the kinds of lives they lived (careers, families, etc.) prior to the expedition (and precious little afterwards as well). Although 6 of these 9 men were, like Powell, fellow Union veterans of the Civil War, but we get nothing about their wartime experiences! We also have no clue what motivated them to join this expedition. This oversight would not doubt have suited the egotistical Powell, but is a serious oversight for a modern historian.

Editorial Review:

On May 24, 1869 a one-armed Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the American West. No one had ever explored the fabled Grand Canyon, to adventurers of that era a region almost as mysterious as Atlantis -- and as perilous.

The ten men set out down the mighty Colorado River in wooden rowboats. Six survived. Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals. Down the Great Unknown is the first book to tell the full, true story.

Child of Steens Mountain

Eileen O'Keefe McVicker

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oregon State University Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $10.43

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Editorial Review:

For Eileen O’Keeffe McVicker, born in 1927 to an Irish immigrant sheep rancher and a school teacher, growing up on a homestead in the West made for “a hard, happy life with layers of riches.” McVicker’s memoir of a childhood spent on the southern slope of Steens Mountain offers a real-life, personal account of eastern Oregon history.An “outdoor child” all her life, McVicker tells stories that revolve around life on the ranch—tending sheep, picking wildflowers, doing chores—and describes everyday adventures: a rabid coyote threatens the family; a wild mustang stallion tries to kill her father; a Merino buck sheep leaps through the schoolhouse window. Images of Steens country—wild sagebrush and juniper country, with rugged vistas in every direction—are woven throughout her recollections, which share the profound sense of place found in the best Western memoirs. While vividly describing ranch life, Child of Steens Mountain also explores universal issues of parenting, making a living, and growing up. The homesteading life built a child’s character and confidence, and as she reaches adulthood, McVicker, raised to be independent and responsible, ultimately defies her parents to follow her own path.McVicker’s neighbor and friend, Barbara J. Scot, edited and organized the narration while preserving the author’s distinctive voice. In an afterword, Scot reflects on McVicker’s experiences and describes the collaborative process—including a visit to the old homestead site—that led to this book. Historian Richard Etulain, whose own childhood was spent on a sheep ranch in the West, provides an overview of sheep ranching and homesteading in Steens country in his foreword.Whether intrigued by Oregon history, the high desert country, or memoirs of homesteading life, readers will be unable to resist these appealing stories of growing up amid the natural beauty of Steens country.

Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of America

Ivan Doig

List Price: $10.95 By: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $0.38

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I can't believe no one has rated this book yet! 5 out of 5 stars.
34 of 35 people found this review helpful.

I've enjoyed this delightful book more than once. Doig writes a travel narrative as he retraces the life and journeys of a fellow named Swan who left detailed daily diaries of life on Washington's Olympic Peninsula during the 1850s. This book provides an insightful look at the Pacific Northwest and the early interaction between settlers and the native Northwest Coast Makah tribes at Neah Bay and Cape Alava. This book is a must-read, just like Doig's "The Sea Runners" and Annie Dillard's "The Living," if you are to understand the Pacific Northwest of the past or present. Doig (via Swan's experiences living on the reservation as an English teacher to Makah children) discusses Haida native art and mythology as well as whale-hunting and potlatches. Just an awesome and insightful read, especially for a cold winter evening by the fire. Makes me want to pull out my copy and read it again, and again, and again.

Editorial Review:

The author of This House of Sky provides a magnificent evocation of the Pacific Northwest through the diaries of James Gilchrist Swan, a settler of the region. Doig fuses parts of the Swan diaries with his own journal.

Arizona: A History

Thomas E. Sheridan

Amazon Price: $50.00 List Price: $50.00 Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks By: University of Arizona Press Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $40.99

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Thomas E. Sheridan has spent a lifetime in Arizona, "living off it and seeking refuge from it." He knows firsthand its canyons, forests, and deserts; he has seen its cities exploding with new growth; and, like many other people, he sometimes fears for its future.

In this book, Sheridan sets forth new ideas about what a history should be. Arizona: A History explores the ways in which Native Americans, Hispanics, and Anglos have inhabited and exploited Arizona from the pursuit of the Naco mammoth 11,000 years ago to the financial adventurism of Charles Keating and others today. It also examines how perceptions of Arizona have changed, creating new constituencies of tourists, environmentalists, and outside business interests to challenge the dominance of ranchers, mining companies, and farmers who used to control the state. Sheridan emphasizes the crucial role of the federal government in Arizona's development throughout the book.

As Sheridan writes about the past, his eyes are on the inevitable change and compromise of the present and future. He balances the gains and losses as global forces interact more and more with local cultural and environmental factors.

Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest (Ancient Peoples and Places)

Stephen Plog

List Price: $27.50 By: Thames & Hudson Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $2.99

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Many people are familiar with such famous pre-Columbian civilizations as the Aztecs and the Maya of Mexico, but few realize just how advanced were contemporary cultures in the American Southwest. Here lie some of the most remarkable monuments of America's prehistoric past, such as Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. Visitors marvel at the impressive ruined pueblos and spectacular cliff dwellings but often have little idea of the cultures that produced these prehistoric wonders. Stephen Plog, who has spent decades working in the region, now provides the most readable and up-to-date account of the predecessors of the modern Hopi and Pueblo Indian cultures. Ten thousand years ago, humans first colonized this inhospitable landscape with its scorching-hot deserts and upland areas where temperatures drop below freezing even during the early summer months. The initial hunter-gatherer bands gradually adapted to become sedentary village groups, and the high point of Southwestern civilization was reached with the emergence of cultures known to archaeologists as the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon in the first millennium A.D. Chaco Canyon became the center of a thriving Anasazi cultural tradition. It was the hub of a trading network extending over hundreds of miles, whose arteries were a series of extraordinary roads that are still being discovered and mapped. To the south lay the settlement of Snaketown, focus of the Hohokam, where the inhabitants built courts for a ritual ball game--intriguing echoes of ancient Mexican practices. The Mogollon people of the Mimbres Valley created some of the world's finest ceramics, decorated with human figures and mythical creatures. Interweaving the latest archaeological evidence with early first-person accounts, Professor Plog explains the rise and mysterious fall of Southwestern cultures. As he concludes, despite the depredations and diseases introduced by the Europeans, the Southwest is still home to vibrant Native American communities that carry on many of the old traditions. Includes information on sites to visit and a map.

Los Angeles Then and Now (Then & Now)

Rosemary Lord

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Lord! How disappointing! 1 out of 5 stars.
35 of 45 people found this review helpful.

I am a Los Angeles history buff (specialty, the early 1900s), so I bought this book for my library, but I was really disappointed in it.

For one thing, it is very badly edited; grammatical errors (mostly misplaced or dangling modifiers) abound. I mean, for such a handsome book, it really deserved a go-through by a professional editor.

Secondly, who really needs a photo of the present-day Roma restaurant at the corner of Hollywood and Wilcox (complete with a guy in a cowboy hat hurrying to beat a flashing "Don't Walk" light and a lineup of late-model cars waiting to cross)?

Or who needs a shot of the Virgin megastore where the historic Schwab's restaurant used to be? And on and on . . . Some of the "before" shots are worthwhile, but most of the "after" shots are really pedestrian -- including that hustling cowpoke.

The best pic is on the cover -- the opening of the movie "Hell's Angels" at Grauman's Chinese. There are some other good older pix inside, too.

As has been mentioned, this book is way too heavy on Hollywood, and the depth of the research by the author can be measured by the number of times she mentions the names of Hollywood movies. I am suspicious of some of the facts in the book, too, although I can't quite pin down the reason right now. Maybe it was all those grammatical errors.

Finally, this book was printed in China, and I have nothing against the Chinese or their desire to earn big bucks from the rest of the world, but couldn't the author have found a printer right here in the U.S. to do this book? "Produced by PRC Publishing Co." PRC, get it -- "People's Republic of China"?

So, don't make this your coffee table gift. If you want a so-so addition to your library of L.A. books, buy it second hand somewhere or pick it up off the remainder table. It has a very nice cover, but you know what they say about books and their covers . . .

Editorial Review:

Los Angeles, the City of Angels, is the capital of show business, where to be young and beautiful is to have it all. Los Angeles Then & Now is a captivating chronicle of history and change in the mecca of glamour and glitz.

• This tell-all book matches 70 historic images with 70 specially-commissioned photos of modern LA, showing the amazing evolution of California’s largest city.
  
• Notice how Native American and Spanish Colonial architectural and cultural influences reside comfortably alongside the glitz of Tinseltown and the cosmopolitan high-rises of LA.
  
• Movie fans will enjoy the many then-and-now pix of legendary Hollywood landmarks like Schwab’s Pharmacy, Paramount Studios, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and the Roosevelt Hotel.
  
• Along with a “Map to the Stars Homes,” this compact edition of best-selling Los Angeles Then & Now makes the perfect travel guide. 

Major Problems in California History

Sucheng Chan, Spencer Olin, Thomas Paterson

Amazon Price: $65.65 List Price: $72.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wadsworth Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $29.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Califonia History 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book has a great collection of essays. The essays are written by scholars, and people who lived through the different experiences in California History. I highly recommend it.

Excellent Collection of Historical Works 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Purchased for a class, I'm still reading the collection of essays and articles written by persons of historical importance. The collection also includes essays written by historians from the perspective of hindsight, but mostly the documentation of persons who experienced the growth pains of California are what make this book the best that I've read. Don't let the title fool you-if you're interested in learning more about how California evolved to become a state you'll find the book interesting and insightful.

Editorial Review:

This volume compiles carefully selected documents and essays to illuminate the most important controversies in the history of California from the precontact period to the present.

The Natural History of Puget Sound Country

Arthur R. Kruckeberg

Amazon Price: $29.20 List Price: $40.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of Washington Press Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $18.98

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Comprehensive ref. for geology, flora, fauna, nat. resources 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Very detailed, scholarly work, description of landforms, geology, soils, climate, vegetation, habitats, animal life, marine life, water resources. Overview of Indian tribes. Bibliography for all subjects is probably 200-300 references. Kruckeburg is Prof. of Botany at University of Washington.

A good ferry book 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Commuting by ferry I always have a few books with me to fill the time either on the crossing or in the line of cars. This is a great book for just that, since it's full of interesting facts and it can be picked up and browsed at just about any place within it. It has lots of interesting graphs, illustrations and photos and has more information than any casual nature lover could require.

The bible of Northwest natural history 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Whenever I have a question about plants, animals, geology, weather, tides, or history of the Puget Sound region, this well-organized book is the place I start. Kruckeberg is amazingly comprehensive and knowledgeable. The book is superbly illustrated, though in black and white. The writing is clear. While a new edition would be welcome, this classic remains timeless.

Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows

Will Bagley

List Price: $26.95 By: University of Oklahoma Press Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $9.86

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Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Taint for Hire, Anybody? 1 out of 5 stars.
6 of 14 people found this review helpful.

The book, _Blood of the Prophets_ was unfortunately written by a 'for hire' author with an a priori conclusion that, in Will Bagley's words, would "pin it on Brigham Young". When you pour your research into an anti-Mormon polemic, it tends to be wasted taint and that's what we've gotten here.

The Bagley Conspiracy 1 out of 5 stars.
6 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I was hopeful of getting a straight story of what happened at Mountain Meadows when I read this book. My ancestor is involved. Bagley warned that if the reader came to read about the "Saints" this and the "Saints" that, then the reader would be disappointed. I was excited about reading a balanced and unbiased story. I checked it out of the public library. I did not see the biased word "Saints" but I did read a very biased book.


I am not a big conspiracy person. However, Bagley's conspiracy goes like this:

1. The much beloved Parley P. Pratt is murdered.
2. Two Mormon men see the "Arkansas" party leave.
3. They notify the Utah Mormons that the wagon train is on the way.
4. The Mormons want to take revenge for Parley P. Pratt's murder
5. The apostle Charles C. Rich (my ancestor) kicks them out of Salt Lake. He sets in motion the conspiracy and tells them not to take the route that the Donner Party took but rather to go to Mountain Meadows.
6. There Brigham Young has devised a plan to murder all in the wagon train.
7. (By all accounts) About 50 Mormon men (remember no Indians) are led by Lee, a somewhat less of a leader. These 50 men (remember no Indians) keep tough wagon train men with guns pinned down for several days. (That would be tough. I've been there. There were more trees back then.)
8. No attempt is made to cover up the crime site. (The bodies were just left)
9. A very weak story is contrived to explain how everyone in the wagon train was murdered.
10. It doesn't take long for the real story to come out.
11. Still the crime site is not cleaned up. The US Army does that later.

I am not a conspiracy person. I feel Oswald acted alone when he killed Kennedy.
I do not think there was a conspiracy to kill everyone in the wagon train. It is silly, nonsensical, and intellectually offensive to say that Brigham Young ordered the massacre. Such people put themselves in the same class as the Kennedy conspiracy theorists.

What made Bagley write this?

1. I think he has issues with his Mormon past. He hints of it in his writing.
2. He "does not like Brigham Young". It is probably not a good idea to write a book if you feel that way. The best Hitler books are balanced. Bagley's book is not balanced. He all but admits it.

Conclusion: Bagley blew it. He wrote an implausible book based on an unlikely conspiracy. He started out with the goal of pinning it on Brigham Young. This reveals a bias..

The conspiracy that is the foundation of his book is not supported by other unbiased historians.
A recent book, The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi, put to rest the Kennedy conspiracy. The upcoming book by Turley will hopefully put to rest the Bagley conspiracy.