Gold!: The Story of the 1848 Gold Rush and How It Shaped a Nation Rating :
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Dubious "History"
By James F. Neel
Author Fred Rosen's Gold! is a lively and breezy look at the California Gold Rush that is entertaining and informative - to a point. It covers the sailient facts of the era and serves as a respectable introduction to its fascinating characters, but at one point goes into such flights of fantasy so as to render the whole questionable. It chooses to concentrate on a few "typical" Argonauts ( as the Forty-Niners styled themselves ) rather than deal with literally thousands of possible narratives. As pointed out elsewhere, the best of these is Ohioan Samuel McNeil, whose journey to the goldfields via steamboat, ocean-going vessels, muleback, and afoot furnishes the bulk of three chapters that supply the stuff of legend. His denoument and eventual return home provides a happier outcome than that of many of his fellow gold-seekers.
As also noted, there is questionable focus on the well-known story of the outlaw James brothers, Frank and Jesse, whose farmer and preacher father Robert set out for California, never to return. And herein lies the fatal flaw in this as any kind of reliable historical work. In offending Chapter 12, One stayed Behind, we are told on p.210 that the elder James traveled to California in a "wagon train commanded by Major Seth Adams"; on p.211, "a hunter in their employ named Cheyenne Bodie stopped for a drink of water in a shallow stream" and found gold; and on p. 218 that later back in Civil War-era Missouri in 1863, "a detachment of Union Army soldiers" looking for Frank James is led by "The officer in charge, Lieutennant Rip Masters". Anyone who remembers the TV westerns of the 1950's will no doubt be familliar with these "historical characters"!
WHY Fred Rosen chose to people his otherwise respectable story with these fictional names is beyond imagining - was it all a joke? Was he trying to figure out if anyone was REALLY "paying attention"? ( I WAS! ) Whatever his misguided motive, by doing so he has made certain that this is a work NOT to be taken seriously, despite the scholarly inclusion of appendicies of the treaties between the United States and Mexico ending the Mexican War and President Polk's 1848 State of the Union Address announcing the discovery of gold. And that's too bad because it's otherwise a fine brief account of this epic event in Western and United States history.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting but flawed
By Thomas S. Young
The story of the 1848 California Gold Rush is quite interesting and this book brings out a number of interesting . But the writing style is very informal and the book is not very well organized. The author makes some points that are, in my mind, very questionable. (he theorizes that Jesse James might not have been such a bad guy if his father hadn't gone off to mine for CA gold.)
It was difficult to take this book seriously.
Product Description
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3318752 in Books
- Published on: 2006-12-08
- Original language:English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.83" h x5.24" w x.91" l,.82 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
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