The Mountain Men

Rating:
Summary: A Great Mountain Man Book For Your Library
Review: I purchased a hard back copy of this book in the early 1980's. It was then, and still is one of my favorite books on the life of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trappers of the early 19th century. Mr. Laycock did a great job of covering the life of these adventurous trappers. It would take volumes to cover it all but this book is a great condensed version. If I were going to recommend a single book to someone who had no knowledge of the Mountain Men, and wanted to learn of their lifestyles, this would be the book. It is an easy read, lots of great photos and illustrations, and it offers a high rate of accuracy. Also included are some brief biographies of some of the famous mountain men such as Jim Bridger and John Colter, and others. This book tells how they applied their trade and the hardships they faced doing it. This is a great book. I assume the paperback version offered will have the same photographs and illustrations. However, my hard back copy has great color in it and I don't know if the paper back will contain color photographs. Anyway, it is my opinion that this is a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Real Men
Review: If you love stories of the old West, this book is a must read!George Laycock does a nice job of giving us a good overview of this time period in our Western History. The book tells much about those days of trapping and exploring when the West was an unknown and unmapped area. In addition to telling the stories of several individual characters like John Colter, Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass, Jeidiah Smith and others, the author takes time to explain the fur trapping business. There are several sections in the book explaining weapons, traps, boats, clothing, tools, etc. The result is that the reader gets a good insight into what these men did and how they did it. The one drawback might be that some of the character studies are a bit short, often leaving the reader wanting more information. However, for a general overview of an important time in our early history, this is a wonderful book. I'd like to see this as required reading in our schools.