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A review by kghdodge
Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West by H.W. Brands
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This is the third book of Brands’ that I’ve read and I have to say I love his style on how he writes about history. He explains broad subjects and the wider picture often, but mostly his chapters are broken up into stories about specific people who lives the events he is writing about. He does a great job of using primary sources to explain his point or describe events.
He often uses excerpts from peoples’ letters to others, or from personal journals, to creat a narrative in his books, instead of just talking about history. This allows the reader to be engrossed in the subject and feel like they are experiencing it, rather then just reading about it. He does this regardless of the subject. I’ve read his book on the American Revolution, the founding of American Texas, and this book about westward expansion. The style of writing and storytelling I described above is present in all three.
This particular book focuses on the American west. It starts with the Louisiana purchase and the Louis and Clark expedition. It then goes into the history of the fur trade and how the settling of Oregon was affected by this and American Protestant missionaries. It covers the evolution of the Oregon trail and how settlers made the journey west. There’s a few brief chapters describing how Utah came to be settled by the Mormons. There are also many chapters and pages dedicated to the effect americas expansion had on the indigenous tribes. It also covers the California gold rush and the Texas revolution briefly. There’s much more that I’m probably forgetting to mention, but the book does a good job conveying many important American events over the course of about 100 years of westward expansion.
If you’ve read his other writing and enjoyed it this one is another great book by Brands. If your new to his writing but enjoy American history, I believe this is a must have in any history buff’s collection. His writing style and the way he writes a story instead of a timeline, makes reading about history so enjoyable and easy.
He often uses excerpts from peoples’ letters to others, or from personal journals, to creat a narrative in his books, instead of just talking about history. This allows the reader to be engrossed in the subject and feel like they are experiencing it, rather then just reading about it. He does this regardless of the subject. I’ve read his book on the American Revolution, the founding of American Texas, and this book about westward expansion. The style of writing and storytelling I described above is present in all three.
This particular book focuses on the American west. It starts with the Louisiana purchase and the Louis and Clark expedition. It then goes into the history of the fur trade and how the settling of Oregon was affected by this and American Protestant missionaries. It covers the evolution of the Oregon trail and how settlers made the journey west. There’s a few brief chapters describing how Utah came to be settled by the Mormons. There are also many chapters and pages dedicated to the effect americas expansion had on the indigenous tribes. It also covers the California gold rush and the Texas revolution briefly. There’s much more that I’m probably forgetting to mention, but the book does a good job conveying many important American events over the course of about 100 years of westward expansion.
If you’ve read his other writing and enjoyed it this one is another great book by Brands. If your new to his writing but enjoy American history, I believe this is a must have in any history buff’s collection. His writing style and the way he writes a story instead of a timeline, makes reading about history so enjoyable and easy.