A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.64 (636 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0195156358 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 688 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-09-22 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
If the word "hero" still belonged in the historian's lexicon, it would certainly be applied to John Wesley Powell. Now comes the first biography of this towering figure in almost fifty years--a book that captures his life in all its heroism, idealism, and ambivalent, ambiguous humanity. The heart of Worster's biography is Powell's epic journey down the Colorado in 1869, a tale of harrowing experiences, lethal accidents, and breathtaking discoveries. A River Running West is a gorgeously written, magisterial account of this great American explorer and environmental pioneer, a true story of undaunted courage in the American West.. After years in the region collecting rocks and fossils and learning to speak the local Native American languages, Powell returned to Washington as an eloquent advocate for the West, one of America's first and most influential conservationists. Worster paints a vivid portrait of how this man emerged from the early nineteenth-century world of immigrants, fervent religion, and rough-and-tumble rural culture, and barely survived the Civil War battle at Shiloh. John Wesley Powell embodied the energy, optimism, and westward impulse of the young United States
Justme said Worth the read.. Awesome book. I bought it to read while I spent a week at Lake Powell. Altogether it made for an awesome combination. The book was much thicker than I anticipated, but I saw that as a good thing. I bought a used copy, but you really couldn't see any reason to think it wasn't new.. John Wesley Powell--a man for dry seasons John Wesley Powell, a man for dry seasonsAfter many diversions, I finally finished reading A River Running West, Donald Worster's full-scale biography of John Wesley Powell. This was my follow-up to several reads of Wallace Stegner's classic account of Powell's career--Beyond the Hundredth Merid. Growing With the Country David H. Stebbing Reading this book was like being present at the creation of America. It will appeal especially to U.S. history buffs and to anyone interested in the American West. Worster's telling of the feat that won Powell fame, leading the first expedition down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyo
Lib., Marquette Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Drawing on a large number of archival and published sources, Worster (history, Univ. However, he should more accurately be recalled for directing the survey that mapped the region around the canyon and for establishing and directing the Bureau of American Ethnology in the Smithsonian Institution, which put the study of Native Americans on a scientific footing. of Kansas; Dust Bowl) traces Powell's life from his frontier childhood through his years in Washington directing both th