Overly detailed look at the fur trade in the 1830's in the Oregon Territory and what made up the NW US after the Louisiana Purchase. But it did shine a light on the westering of what was to be the United states and where and when it happened. Also, and unapologetic look at the American Indians at the time. Written in the 1940's deVoto had no mind for dramatizing the plight of native people. ( )

I have read well over 1,000 books and can count on one hand the number I have abandoned without finishing. This work joins that select list.

This is a non-fiction chronicle of fur trading activity in the early 1830s. It is a bone dry, often confusing and hard to follow account of the different mountain men, trading companies and Indian tribes that interacted during the period in the Rocky Mountain region.

If a two-page, narrative account of the supplies carried by a beaver trapping company, with the 1832 cost of each item is your cup of tea, this is the book for you. If an exhaustive description of the physical movements of a trapper, with place names and geographic features, without the aid of a map, is your idea of fun, send me a message and I’ll forward you this beauty.

After 100 pages of torture and 400 left to go, I bailed. ( )

This is a logical successor to the books I read on Lewis & Clark - of which I was sufficiently enamoured to have planned a trip retracing their momentous peregrination travelling from St Louis to the Pacific at Astoria. This story wouldn't have happened without L&C who were rapidly followed by the beaver and fur trade and the inimical 'mountain men'. These men could hardly be called 'white men' as they became almost as the Indians except not really believing in their superstitions.

Most of the story happens between 1834 to 36, some in 37 and then dwindles away, as did the beavers and the mountain men, until the first settlers about a decade later.

This is a story of primitive white men, stone-age Indians, greed, violence, and grandeur.

The book was written in 1947 and I wonder if modern sensitivities would have made this a very different book.

It left an impression. I must follow Lewis and Clark. I must ... ( )

At first, DeVoto's style drove me crazy, since I like my history written in plain, unassuming English, but as he wrote he seems to have lossened up and by the end of the book I appreciated his digressions and comments, even his footnotes. The real problems I had with this book were the lack of any map (this problem is not DeVoto's but the compilers of this edition)and DeVoto's assumption that his readers already possess a fairly comprehensive knowledge of American history. My knowledge was not comprehensive enough to fully appreciate the story DeVoto tells. ( )

A classic history of the fur trade from 1832 to 1838. He follows the missionaries that went to Oregon at that time and visited the a few of the rendezvous. He follows also the artists Bodmer, Catlin and especially Miller that recorded the mountain times and the Indians---this edition is illiustrated by paintings of these three.