Bozeman Books

This book gives critical information that everyone needs if they are planning to build a house and the best part about it is that it is understandable. The author has given the information that we need in a very readable and humorous manner. He uses examples that are from real people with real problems and you come away from the book with the confedience you can be successful. Building a house is not rocket science but it does require paying attention to details and the author give excellent guidance on what those details are.

Scholars will appreciate the ten years of research the author put into gathering the 33 firsthand accounts (diaries and reminiscences) of travels on the Bozeman Trail, the last of the western emigrant trails. The rest of us can vicariously enjoy the pleasures and endure the ordeals of the overland trips by reading the direct words of the intrepid travelers. In their quest for the fastest route to the gold fields, the emigrants went through land ceded to the Native Americans by treaty, and were the catalyst for the Indian Wars of the 1860's and 1870's. This effectively closed the trail in 1866. This two volume set includes annotations, and illustrations, maps and photographs, appendices and a glossary, and excellent overview and afterword, as well as introductions to each year the trail was used, and each diary. Doyle has done a truly impressive job of locating and editing the materials, and presenting them in a most useful and readable way. Fans of books such as THE PERFECT STORM and INTO THIN AIR might like to compare the feats of these earlier adventurers. Many of the men, women, and children who emigrated via the Bozeman and other trails had already moved from somewhere else. A restless bunch, "they traveled west because they could".

This is a scholarly work, by a competent historian and excellent writer, the book will get nowhere near the attention and reading it deserves, perhaps explaining why it is out-of-print.

The people who need to read it the most, are perhaps the least likely to read it, the young earth creationists. The author has at least two high level motivations to write this book. The first is to demonstrate specifically how in a particular time and place, early 19thC America, a particular religious group, Old Princeton as heir of Reformation Calvinism, works to tie religion and culture together to solve societal intellectual problems. pg 174 "It may be questioned whether religious leaders at any previous point in the nation's past ahd achievd a more unabashed union of gospel and culture than this."(this referring to the Presbyterian Old School baconist interpretation of both science and religion) Secondly, he desires as a historian to cast light on the thoughts of today by tracing their roots historically and philosophically. "It is therefore feasible to suggest that the most important contemporary echo of Baconian biblicism in not to be heard within Presbyterianism as such, but within the huge party of conservative evangelicalism which has adherents within every denomination and which today perpetuates in varying degrees the essential theological tents of Fundamentalism, including biblical inerrancy." pg 173

We are used to the analogy of religion and science at war, we are less accustomed to the 19thC thinking of the two books of God; special revelation in the words of the Bible, and general revelation in the book of nature, as read by science. The two books, not warfare is the analogy that dominated American religious thought, especially the particular school represented by Princeton, until the rise of Darwinianism in 1870's. The contention that the two books, as written by the same reasonable God could not contradict each other is crucial to the theology as explained in the book. The book develops the theme that a particular way of reading both books, Baconism developed as a reaction to the French Enlightment with its accent on the unfettered by religion rise of man's Reason to explain the world.

The best part of the book is what he calls the doxological relationship of theology to science. pg 78 "More often, religious values were stated explicitly. Edward Everett, as usual, captured the full essence of current conceptions: 'the great end of all knowledge is to enlarge and purify the soul, to fill the mind with noble contemplations, to furnish a refined pleasure, and to lead our feeble reason from the works of nature up to its great Author,' Everett considered this 'as the ultimate aim of science.'" Having grown up in a world dominated by materialist science the chapter on doxological science was reason enough to have spent the time reading this book. That our forefather's in the faith, at a crucial time in the development of the relationship of modern science and theology; saw science as anawe-inspiring, devotional subject is a breath of fresh cool air on a world presently seen by science as aloof, uninterested in humankind, random, and downright unfriendly, dominated by forces of impersonality certainly not a loving God.

This well researched book has many excellent short hikes in the Bozeman area including Bear Canyon, Galatin Valley and Paradise Valley. The book includes hikes to waterfalls, mountain lakes and of course, the wonderful Hyalite Canyon area. For day hikes in Yellowstone National Park, Stone has published "Day Hikes in Yellowstone National Park."

We were planning on hiking the Crazy Mountain range, but there were no trails included in this book even though they are in the Bozeman area.

Those interested in colonial New England biography would do well to pay close attention to the title of this slim volume. This book is relatively long on early New England Baptist theology and practice, and the politics of securing Rhode Island's charter of 1663, but very short on John Clarke and his times. Consequently there is little here for the non-professional historical reader and even less on material culture. The book has the feel of something unfinished, not surprising when one learns that the author died before he completed it. There are no illustrations, although a portrait believed to be of Clarke exists. William Dyre's role in revoking Coddington's patent of 1651 and obtaining a new patent with Clarke in 1652 goes without mention. The footnote for the quote in the chapter 2 title is missing. Some descriptions seem outright silly, such as that Coddington's house in Newport was large and Clarke's must have been much smaller. The flaws are not hard to notice. It is difficult to write the biography of a second-tier figure of early New England when so little documentation remains, but the author could have done much more. This is the history of religion and politics, but not of John Clarke.

This book is the exact same as Fat/Trax Bozeman, which was written in 1996 by Will Harmon. Only the Title and cover have been changed. Also, both books lack many trails that have been built since 2000 including one of the best, Bangtail Divide Trail. Some trails have also been rerouted. All in all it is still a good book for someone new to Bozeman, just be aware that it will not have everything so ride with a local.