| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 233 words from this article are provided below; about 630 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell. By Donald Worster. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. xiv, 673 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-19-509991-5.)

William Henry Holmes and the Rediscovery of the American West. By Kevin J. Fernlund. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. xx, 300 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-8263-2127-5.)

Although A River Running West represents a remarkable scholarly achievement by a distinguished American historian, it inevitably invites comparison with Wallace Stegner's Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West. Published in 1954, Stegner's biography of Powell has become a classic of western Americana. It is a measure of Donald Worster's ambition and reach as a historian that, in revisiting the terrain that Stegner surveyed so successfully a generation before, he nonetheless manages to offer new insights on a potentially familiar subject. 1

Worster's and Stegner's biographies have much in common. Both A River Running West and Beyond the Hundredth Meridian focus on Powell's public life. Both detail the one-armed explorer's celebrated navigations of the raging Colorado River in 1869 and 1871, his public lectures and published reports, and his climb to—and fall from—power in the emerging federal bureaucracy of the late nineteenth century. Neither sheds much light on the private Powell: his inner psychology, his apparent crisis of faith, or his strained relationships with his wife, daughter, and other family members. . . .

There are about 630 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.