Historic Books

In this book, the author describes and discusses twelve "Trails" which have been designated as "Historic" in accordance with the National Trails System Act passed by Congress in 1968. Included are well known trails such as that taken by Lewis and Clark, the Oregon Trail, the Trail of Tears, and the Iditarod Trail; as well as lesser known, though equally important, trails such as the Overmountain Victory, California, Pony Express and Nez Perce Trails.

Each of the twelve trails is discussed in a separate chapter, with each chapter beginning with an illustration showing the route taken by its subject trail. Some are thousands of miles long while others, like the Selma to Montgomery Trail, are much shorter. And each chapter is beautifully illustrated with pictures of interest taken along the way. What makes the book most interesting, however, is that each trail is discussed from three perspectives, historically, geographically, and present day travel wise. And best of all, the author's dialog smoothly weaves these perspectives into an interesting, informative, and entertaining text. Historically: he tells us why each trail was created, who the people were who traveled on it, and what happened to them along the way. Geographically: he describes the lay of the land when each trail was traversed and what major obstacles lay along the way. And, finally, he describes each trail as it exists today, identifying major points of interest, such as the five-foot deep ruts carved in solid rock by some 500,000 wagons heading west, near Guernsey, Wyoming, and advises those interested as to what parts of the original trails can still be seen and walked today.

I learned a lot of history by reading this book (some good and some bad) and, although, I likely will never set out to walk any part of these trails, I really enjoyed learning about them. I think other readers will to.

This is a fun light read. Paranormal, unexplained, whatever you might think of such things, the author takes the reader on a tour of more than 75 such places in the USA. Some are well known, some obscure. Pictures and text for each site.

This book is a good read. Yes the book has plenty of self congraduations by Albert Spalding. But this was a great athlete who took himself off the field to become a richman in selling sporting goods and to lesser extent in the Chicago White Stockings (later to become known as the Chicago Cubs). Purely slanted to the owners point of view in collective bargaining and the need to keep players honest and the game clean. He believed that the owners kept baseball profitable and enjoyable for the fan. This book tells baseball from the perspective of 1860 to 1910, with no disadvantage of the knowledge of Babe Ruth, black sox scandal, or the million dollar ballplayer. This book will take you back to an earlier time.

Absolutely beautiful book with some of the best documentation of park design anywhere. Note to publisher: the glued-on illustration on the front of the book was pasted in upside-down. While this may make it very valuable in the future, it is somewhat disconcerting!

I FOUND THIS BOOK VERY USEFUL AS I TRAVEL AROUND ON MY VACTION TOURS. I SUGGEST ALL OWN A COPY. PAUL

This is a comprehensive, well researched book on a spectacular collection. Miss Ima had a great eye for fine furniture and art of the American Federal Period. This collection is second only to the great Winterthur Collection as a repository of American Federal furniture. The setting for this collection is breathtaking, the mansion is beautiful and the setting, in Houston's finest area has to be seen to be believed. Miss Ima's collection is huge and the house, though large, is not big enough to showcase all of it, so when one visits the house they may see different items then they would have seen months earlier. To visit Bayou Bend in the Spring is to experience heaven on earth. This is a great guide to a singular collection in a unparalled setting. I highly recommend this guide and make a point if you are in Houston it visit this amazing house and collection, I assure you, you won't be disappointed.

First... some disclosure. I am a "card-carrying" admirer of John Singer Sargent and of all of his work. I have more than fifty books on Sargent. And I am an obsessive amateur watercolorist; half of our home is filled with paintings, paintings in progress and painting supplies. But, a little rational mitigation... I am not monomaniacal. I also deeply appreciate the work of other greats such as John Whorf and Winslow Homer. And today's Trevor Chamberlain, John Yardley, David Curtis, etc. So, if you like this kind of work, then you'll love this book.

Love it even without any fancy academic theory, art history or the like. Like me, you can just look at a reproduction of an alpine brook in watercolor by Sargent and simply say, "Wow!" And pass your eyes over every millimeter. "Look how he suggests those rocks and ferns!" But then I also greatly enjoy reading the textual background. Where it was done. In what context. Sargent's visits and vacations. The work's provenance. This last can be facinating as in the case of Sargent's recently surfaced, fabulous and obviously originally "mis-acquired" by a maid, "Spanish Dancer". Why, if my own work was any good and further if I did employ a maid then I'd be very careful to... :)
Well, obviously I can speak only as a naive Sargent enthusiast, but I can't recommend this book more. I read it over and over. I'd have paid twice the price.

Approximately 11 & 1/2 by 9 inches and 426 pages. Published by the Metropolitan in 2000. An excellent physical production in the usual quality manner of Yale University Press, lately the source of excellent series on artists. (Here, Sargent but also the likes of William Merritt Chase. Yale was a physical partner in this particular Sargent enterprise.) This book is organized roughly chronologically, from Sargent's youth onwards. However, there's much more; an Essay on Materials and Techniques, a Sargent Chronology, an Exhibition History, a Record of Travel and Other Studies, and an appendix, Works of Questionable Attribution.

Finally, for some, the category "drawing" can be confusing, as is evident here it also includes watercolors. Go figure. But, I don't mind the nomenclature as long as the academics provide me with pretty decent reproductions and an interesting history.

Ok, first the standard disclaimer: I am one of the contributors of one short essay to this volume...so I won't review my own essay on Blood Run National Historic Landmark ;-) However, there are over 370 sites and essays from every region and every era of the United States in this encyclopediac volume, except for Alaska and Hawaii. The indigenous people of Hawaii are not counted as Native American; it is uncertain why the Native Americans of Alaska were not included. All the profits from this book are being donated to the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall, a part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

The thing that strikes me is that each essay was written by a tribal member or scholar who is especially knowledgeable about, and connected to, the particular site they write about. The overall organization of the book is based on both geography and theme; each section is comprised of several feature essays focusing on the themes important to the regiopn, along with numerous short essays that are numbered and keyed to a map for easy location by the reader. Before getting into the regions, there are some introductory essays with a historic focus (precontact to 1900) that set the overall context for the book. The regions in general correspond to the usual culture areas of Plains, Southwest, etc., and are keyed to several maps breaking the U.S. into five areas corresponding to the five sections of the book.

Section One focuses on 84 sites in the Northeast region, shown in this book as being north of the Ohio River, from the East Coast, westward to Minnesota and the Mississippi River. The feature essays include "Early Mound Builders," "Effigy Mound Builders," "Eastern North America," "King Philip's War," "The Fur Trade," "The Seven Year's War," "Fort Johnson, Johnson Hall, and the Anglo-Mohawk Alliance," "American Indians and the American Revolution," "Fort Stanwix, Oriskany Battlefield, and Newtown Battlefield," "Under Treaty Oaks: Lingering Shadows of Unfinished Business," "Manoominike: Making Wild Rice," "The Black Hawk War," "American Indian Boarding Schools," and "Reformers."

Section Two focuses on 108 sites (#85-192) in the Southeast region, shown in this book as being from the East Coast westward to the Mississippi River, eastern Texas and Oklahoma. The feature essays include "Sacred Places and Visitor Protocols," "Florida's Native American Heritage," "Three Places in the Domain of the Calusa," "Mississippian: A Way of Life," "The Rise and Fall of the Mississippians," "Franciscan Design for the Native People of La Florida," "Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: The Forced Removal of the Cherokee," "Removal and Recovery," "Constitutional Government Among the Five Civilized Tribes," and "American Indians and the Civil War."

Section Three focuses on 59 sites (#193-251) in the northern Prairie-Plains region, shown in this book as being from the Mississippi River area westward to the northern Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming. The feature essays include "People and Place," "Tools from the Earth," "Pictographs and Petroglyphs in Texas," "Buffalo Jumps," "The Myth of Nomadism and Indigenous Lands," "The Dakota in Minnesota 1851-1862," and "The Battle of the Little Bighorn." My own short essay is in this section: #214: "Blood Run National Historic Landmark, IA: Peace on the Prairie;" I am a member of the Ioway tribe who celebrated the Pipe Dance here along with several other tribes.

Section Four focuses on 68 sites (#252-319) in the Southwest, from Colorado and New Mexico westward to Nevada. The feature essays include "Places and Spaces," "Great Basin Indigenous Places," "Petroglyphs and Pictographs in the Great Basin," "Expanding the Dialogue Between American Indians and Non-Indian Archaeologists," "The Hohokam: People of the Desert," "The Fremont," "Ancestral Pueblo Peoples," "The People of the Mimbres Mogollon Region," "Chacoans Away From Home: Chacoan Outlying Communities," "Seven Great House Communities of the Chacoan Era," "The Chaco Meridian," "The Pueblo Diaspora," "The Sinagua," "So Far and Yet So Near," "The Elusive Salado," "American Indians' Spirituality and Land Use," "The History of the Pueblo Indians," "Wisdom Sits in Places," and "Tree Ring and Radiocarbon Dating."

Section Five focuses on 46 sites (#320-366) in the Far West, including California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and a small portion of western Montana. The feature essays include "Native Californians," "Founding a Tribal Museum: The Malki Museum," "California Missions," "Our Final Place," "The Nez Perce Before 1876," "The Nez Perce Since 1876," and "Contemporary American Indian Identity and Place."

This is really a magnum opus from Mrs. Kennedy. This is not the kind of book you just sit down and read from cover to cover, but peruse and study according to your interests. It is highly recommended for this interested in traveling to Native American sites, as well as those with an interest in American history and archaeology, Native American studies and traditions, or just learning more about the history of the places where they live. A must-have for schools and libraries!

I was researching the heroic story of the loss of the USS Aaron Ward (sunk off the Solomon Islands towards the end of WW2) when I came across the printed version (i.e. the 8 volume set) of this item on one of the Amazon websites and promptly purchased it. In many ways this is a more practical version because it allows you to browse, copy and transfer data but I still prefer the book.

Set out in alphabetical order and written without fear or favour, the United States Department of Defence have provided one of the most important research tools of modern years and I congratulate them for an excellent job of work. The entry for each ship commences with a note about the origin of the name. For example, the USS Missouri is named after an American state - enough said. The Aaron Ward, however, was named after Admiral Aaron Ward and that particular section commences with a most reasonable biography of the man.

Each ship to bear a particular name is covered in varying degrees of detail - largely dependant on what historical information was available to the compilers. Famous ships and, naturally, more recent vessels, get excellent coverage although it must be said that if the information was available on those much older vessels, then their full story is told here.

Watch out for single volumes being sold separately - when you are either looking for a complete set or perhaps a different volume.

Altogether, an excellent addition to my own library of information.

NM

A detail from Frieseke's "Lady with a Parasol" wraps around the cover of this beautiful quality paperback. The book is aptly titled, as the authors include many works that show the bredth and depth of American painters best known for their Impressionist works, and of contemporaries such as Winslow Homer, Chase, Sargent, Maurice Prendergast, and others. Works by F. C. Frieseke include "Girl Reading" c. 1900, o/c 107.6 x 90.8 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston;"Lady in Rose" c. 1910-1915, o/c, 82.2 x 82.2 cm, William Hill Land & Cattle Co.; "Sewing in the Garden" c. 1915, o/c 74.6 x 93 cm, Ann Gordon Trammel; "Sunbath" c. 1910, o/c 73.4 x 92.7 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and "Lady with a Parasol" c. 1908, o/c 64.8 x 81.3, Private Collection.