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Book Notes
Compiled and written by Ken DuBois
| The Great Frontier, by Walter Prescott Webb, foreword by William D. Rowley (Univ. of Nevada Press, Reno and Las Vegas, 2003. Bibliography, index. 464 pages. $21.95 paper)
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First published in 1952, Webb's book is a discussion of the entire occupation of the New World by an expanding Europe. Central to Webb's thesis is the idea that the Great Frontier included all of the unexploited, habitable regions of the globe opened up by fifteenth-, sixteenth-, and seventeenth-century explorers and closed by the end of the nineteenth century. |
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| Fugitive Slave in the Gold Rush: Life and Adventures of James Williams, by James Williams, introduction by Malcolm J. Rohr-bough (Univ. of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2002. Illustrations, index. 144 pages. $16.95 paper)
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Born a slave in 1825, Williams escaped on horseback at age thirteen from a Maryland farm. The author chronicles his work on the Underground Railroad, assisting other former slaves in their flight to freedom, and his travels west in the gold-rush era. Williams makes few comments about the Civil War but offers many opinions on matters of race in San Francisco and the mining communities. |
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| Plants of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, by H. Wayne Phillips (Mountain Press Publishing, Missoula, Mont., 2003. Photographs, illustrations, maps, glossary, appendix, bibliography, index. 278 pages. $20.00 paper)
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The author, a former Forest Service ecologist and forester, organized the material in this field guide as a journey along the Lewis and Clark trail, plant by plant. Each section focuses on a part of the great expedition, and includes notes on the explorers' collection of plant specimens and corresponding journal citations. Phillips also provides basic plant descriptions, and over three hundred color photographs. |
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| Riches for All: The California Gold Rush and the World, edited by Kenneth N. Owens (Univ. of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2002. Maps, index. 380 pages. $27.95 paper)
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The fourteen essays in this collection form a broad social history of the California gold-rush era, including analysis of the role played by technology, the economy, and the legal system. Essays cover the roles of women, Mexicans, African Americans, Chinese, and Chileans and consider the factors that led to a societal movement toward personal independence and away from the constraints of community. |
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