This is another lively work from one of our best chroniclers of the Old West. Dary (Cowboy Culture
; The Santa Fe Trail
; etc.) looks at the men and women who trekked the trouble-strewn paths to the nation's northwest coast. It's an epic American story of limitless hopes, searing losses, pioneers, missionaries and not a few bad characters. Dary opens with 18th-century maritime explorers and carries us into the late 19th century, when the trail west from Independence, Mo., had ceded its importance to the railroads. In the shadow of such great earlier historians as Francis Parkman and Bernard De Voto, Dary is matter-of-fact and exhaustive. Unfortunately, the facts are sometimes overwhelming, and a reader yearns for some analysis. But Dary makes up for this lack by salting his account with quotations from travelers' diaries and illustrations. He follows the rutted way of keeping the Indian tribes subsidiary to the story. Yet his closing chapter on the Oregon Trail's rebirth as a tourist draw in the 20th century is a real contribution to modern western lore. It's hard to imagine a more informative introduction to the westering itch along the Oregon Trail and to those who responded to it. 86 b&w illus., 7 maps. Agent, Spectrum Literary.
Alternate selection of the History Book Club and the Crossings Book Club.
(Nov. 10)
