Rating: 
Summary: Captivating
Review: An absorbing, compelling and very readable account on the history of the Sante Fe Trail. From the early beginnings of 1500's Spanish exploration and the founding of Sante Fe by Juan de Onate in 1610, Dary takes the reader through five centuries of the magic and mystique of the Trail. Relationships, many times hostile, between the Spanish, Indians and Americans are very well documented in this descriptive chronology along with tensions between Mexico and the U.S., influences of the Civil War and the railroads, etc. all having significant ramifications on commerce between the two nations. An excellent book and very well researched.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: An absorbing, compelling and very readable account on the history of the Sante Fe Trail. From the early beginnings of 1500's Spanish exploration and the founding of Sante Fe by Juan de Onate in 1610, Dary takes the reader through five centuries of the magic and mystique of the Trail. Relationships, many times hostile, between the Spanish, Indians and Americans are very well documented in this descriptive chronology along with tensions between Mexico and the U.S., influences of the Civil War and the railroads, etc. all having significant ramifications on commerce between the two nations. An excellent book and very well researched.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing and Tough to Get Through
Review: I agree with other disapointed reviewers that this is one tough book to wade through - even as a history lover. While well researched, it is a monotonous read and will test the patience of even those who have a love for the subject matter. It attempts to cover too much at once and never really succeeds in connecting all the dots in an entertaining fashion.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding work of history.
Review: I don't normally take the time to write reviews for books I've read, but this time I couldn't help myself. The author has done a great job of placing a very big slice of history into a single, highly readable volume. The chronological approach to telling the story of the Sante Fe Trail works great and the appearance "onstage" of several well known historical names and places is well done (ie., Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, Fort Leavenworth, etc.). For any lay-scholar of the Old West, this is a must have if only for the notes, glossary, bibliography, and index...but then there's also the great story.As for how the violence between Indians and non-natives on the Trail was portrayed, I saw it as a matter-of-fact approach that was very appropriate. The story was the Trail; almost any attempt to explain the violence would have caused a serious digression of that story. The clash of cultures (and the resulting bloodshed) between European descendants and Native Americans is a dark part of U.S. History, but a part better left detailed in other works.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding work of history.
Review: I don't normally take the time to write reviews for books I've read, but this time I couldn't help myself. The author has done a great job of placing a very big slice of history into a single, highly readable volume. The chronological approach to telling the story of the Sante Fe Trail works great and the appearance "onstage" of several well known historical names and places is well done (ie., Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, Fort Leavenworth, etc.). For any lay-scholar of the Old West, this is a must have if only for the notes, glossary, bibliography, and index...but then there's also the great story. As for how the violence between Indians and non-natives on the Trail was portrayed, I saw it as a matter-of-fact approach that was very appropriate. The story was the Trail; almost any attempt to explain the violence would have caused a serious digression of that story. The clash of cultures (and the resulting bloodshed) between European descendants and Native Americans is a dark part of U.S. History, but a part better left detailed in other works.
Rating: 
Summary: Very informative but where are the Maps?
Review: I found this book to be very rewarding and interesting, but not without fault. I found the lack of maps (or the absence of a map with more of the placenames mentioned) in the book to be very annoying - and I confess I got geographically lost at some points. I found the book very well researched and some of the stories and anecdotes very entertaining. In fact, I wished that there could have been room for more traveller's stories within the book. I must say that I got a bit disorientated in the middel of the book but it came together well. The additon of many photographs (rare in a book of this type) was a fantasic bonus and really added to the enjoyment of the book. Overall a highly entertaining and educational book but would have been so much better with the addition of more detailed maps.
Rating:
Summary: Panoramic historical story!
Review: I thought this was a great book! Dary builds up wonderful images out of a lot of meticulous detail. It is solidly researched; Dary has been a historian (and lover) of the West all his life. That shows, as does his journalistic background as a storyteller. The book is also well-produced by Knopf, with a large number of fascinating illustrations, most from his own extensive collection of Western Americana. The book does need more and better maps, in my opinion--the one on the endpapers is very handy but more pretty than useful. I enjoyed the cumulative effect of his details. True, any one of the paragraphs could be expanded into a history/biography of its own, or a novel, but the purpose here is a comprehensive and readbale history of a major part of the growth of this country, from 1492 to the present day. I recommend it highly!
Rating:
Summary: Go West, Young Men
Review: I was fascinated by this review. The three Aull boys were born and grew up in our house in New Castle,Delaware and one wall still bears scars of their early experiments with their father John's compass. It gave flesh to earlier sketches of their lives and explained how James probably came back for his mother and sisters when he came to Philadelphia for supplies. The church records say "moved to Missouri in 1833". I'm hoping to find more information about the family from Missouri records. The whole saga would be worth a special by Ken Burns. Please thank the author for me.
Rating:
Summary: A Trail to Nowhere
Review: Life on the Santa Fe Trail was no doubt dramatic and colorful, but you would not know it from this book. More than 300 pages of stitched together factual recitations and short anecdotes, the narrative lacks any central characters, themes, or ideas. None of the individuals featured in the book survives more than a few pages, and just as a story starts to draw in the reader, it ends, only to be followed by another quite similar episode, and another and another. Great events dominate the times, but the book seems to separate life on the trail from those events, making the trail itself seem to be almost boring, which it surely was not. The largest contribution this book can hope to make is to point another writer to promising source material with which to bring the story of this trail to life.
Rating:
Summary: A Trail to Nowhere
Review: Life on the Santa Fe Trail was no doubt dramatic and colorful, but you would not know it from this book. More than 300 pages of stitched together factual recitations and short anecdotes, the narrative lacks any central characters, themes, or ideas. None of the individuals featured in the book survives more than a few pages, and just as a story starts to draw in the reader, it ends, only to be followed by another quite similar episode, and another and another. Great events dominate the times, but the book seems to separate life on the trail from those events, making the trail itself seem to be almost boring, which it surely was not. The largest contribution this book can hope to make is to point another writer to promising source material with which to bring the story of this trail to life.
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