| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Hard Road West: History and Geology along the Gold Rush Trail. By Keith Heyer Meldahl. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. xxii, 329 pp. $25.00, ISBN 978-0-226-51960-9.)

Keith Heyer Meldahl's primary goal in Hard Road West is to explain the geology of the American West for "general-interest readers" (p. xv). But he does it with an interesting hook: he uses travelers' accounts and other observations along the California Trail to introduce the lay of the land. He then follows those comments with a full discussion of geologic processes. For Meldahl, the California Trail is an excellent tool because it moves his narrative across the land; introduces a human element to what could be a rather esoteric study; and proves to be an excellent foil: the western emigrants could only go where the landscape let them.

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