EXPLORERS, MISSIONARIES, AND TRAPPERS

Fur, gold, and land lured Europeans across the Atlantic to America decades ago. This volume profiles some of those

original explorers, including the well-known, like John Sutter and Brigham Young, and the lesser-known, such as Juan de Onate, Eusebio Kino, and Junipero Serra, who founded some of the first missions in the southwest and California. The writing is detailed but dry, and though there's much minutiae about the lives of the explorers, little effort is made to include other views, particularly those of Native Americans. Readers learn which explorers were sympathetic and which were enemies to the real Americans, but their voices are for the most part absent in this account. For students studying the westward movement, or for regional collections, this book may be helpful in understanding the traditional European conquest of America. But such a

one-sided view seems archaic today, when so many other viewpoints abound. Not a recommended purchase. (Nonfiction. 11+)