A densely populated account, rich in overlooked elements of the western experiment, executed with fine historical veracity.
A detailed narrative of the rise and decline of the Santa Fe Trail as an epochal vein of 19th-century expansion, courtesy of a noted Western enthusiast.
Dary (Cowboy Culture, not reviewed), an authority on the Old West, demonstrates a firm grasp of the terrain’s history—both before and after its acquisition by the US. During the mid-19th century the Santa Fe Trail’s importance grew rapidly (as a venue for trade with Mexico and as a stable and safe route across the politically volatile landscapes of New Mexico and Texas), even as the encroachments of civilization soon changed its character almost beyond recognition. The author devotes separate chapters to the early development of Santa Fe as a strategic center of trade, to the growth of trade in general throughout the region, to the crucial role of the “Prairie schooner” (the Pittsburgh-manufactured Conestoga wagon) in the transport of goods, and to the role of the Trail in the Mexican-American and Civil wars. Dary is skilled at resurrecting the old lives of this landscape and introduces us to local characters, such as Francis Aubry (a brash trader who crossed the Trail in six days to win a $1,000 bet), Matteo Boccalini (who fled the priesthood to live an even more ascetic lifestyle in a solitary outpost along the Trail), William Bent (who established his own fort along the Arkansas River and profited from the Indian trade), and Susan Magoffin (a trader’s wife who kept a tart journal of the Trail’s privations). Most startling are the accounts of the frequent Indian raids: aggressive tribes like the Apache and Comanche attacked merchant and settler parties without mercy, often abducting those (usually women and children) whom they failed to massacre. Dary seems obsessed with “telling it like it was,” even extending to his mournful chapter “The Slow Death of the Trail” (which blames rapid railway expansion in the 1870s).
A densely populated account, rich in overlooked elements of the western experiment, executed with fine historical veracity.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-40361-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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