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Rating: 
Summary: North American history from 1600-1776
Review: The scope of this work is astonishing. Originally published in 13 volumes, Parkman's magnum opus is here distilled to a mere 800 pages. Beginning with Cartier's forays into the Canadian wilderness, Parkman recounts the gradual European settlement of the continent. Along the way, the giants of pre-1776 North America -- Champlain, Brebeuf, La Salle, Amherst, Montcalm, Wolfe and the powerful nations of the Iroquois -- are presented in all their humanity, by turns heroic and flawed. Throughout, Parkman's style is highly readable and entertaining. Especially wonderful are his occasional lapses into the high-toned style of the late 19th century. The reader is invited to "embark in the canoe of some Montagnais Indian" and cross the St Lawrence to Quebec, to climb the cliffs and, "pausing for breath," behold the tenants of this wilderness outpost in 1635: "a soldier of the fort; an officer in slouched hat and plume; a party of indians; a trader from the upper country, one of the precursors of that hardy race of coureurs de bois;" -- and of course, a Black Robed Jesuit -- none other than Father Le Jeune himself -- the vanguard of European exploration into the interior. By contrast, the reader is invited to become indignant -- as the colonists were -- at the latter half of the reign of George II, "the unwashed and unsavory England of Hogarth, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne; of Tom Jones, Squire Western, Lady Bellaston, and Parson Adams; of 'Rake's Progress' and 'Marriage a la Mode'; of lords and ladies who yet live in the undying gossip of Horace Walpole, be-powdered, be-patched and be-rouged, flirting at masked balls, playing cards till daylight, retailing scandal, and exchanging double meanings." Great stuff. Throughout, you'll get plenty of history and plenty of Parkman, with all that entails. I've seldom enjoyed reading so much as with this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject matter. CAVEAT: This book was written over 100 years ago. That means there is no new historicism, no Marxist theory, no psychoanalytic criticism, no semiotics, no neoformalism (or, for that matter, plain old formalism), no structuralism or post-structualism, no analysis of perceptual processes, no modes of discourse or discourse on modes. So beware.
Rating:
Summary: North American history from 1600-1776
Review: The scope of this work is astonishing. Originally published in 13 volumes, Parkman's magnum opus is here distilled to a mere 800 pages. Beginning with Cartier's forays into the Canadian wilderness, Parkman recounts the gradual European settlement of the continent. Along the way, the giants of pre-1776 North America -- Champlain, Brebeuf, La Salle, Amherst, Montcalm, Wolfe and the powerful nations of the Iroquois -- are presented in all their humanity, by turns heroic and flawed. Throughout, Parkman's style is highly readable and entertaining. Especially wonderful are his occasional lapses into the high-toned style of the late 19th century. The reader is invited to "embark in the canoe of some Montagnais Indian" and cross the St Lawrence to Quebec, to climb the cliffs and, "pausing for breath," behold the tenants of this wilderness outpost in 1635: "a soldier of the fort; an officer in slouched hat and plume; a party of indians; a trader from the upper country, one of the precursors of that hardy race of coureurs de bois;" -- and of course, a Black Robed Jesuit -- none other than Father Le Jeune himself -- the vanguard of European exploration into the interior. By contrast, the reader is invited to become indignant -- as the colonists were -- at the latter half of the reign of George II, "the unwashed and unsavory England of Hogarth, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne; of Tom Jones, Squire Western, Lady Bellaston, and Parson Adams; of 'Rake's Progress' and 'Marriage a la Mode'; of lords and ladies who yet live in the undying gossip of Horace Walpole, be-powdered, be-patched and be-rouged, flirting at masked balls, playing cards till daylight, retailing scandal, and exchanging double meanings." Great stuff. Throughout, you'll get plenty of history and plenty of Parkman, with all that entails. I've seldom enjoyed reading so much as with this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject matter. CAVEAT: This book was written over 100 years ago. That means there is no new historicism, no Marxist theory, no psychoanalytic criticism, no semiotics, no neoformalism (or, for that matter, plain old formalism), no structuralism or post-structualism, no analysis of perceptual processes, no modes of discourse or discourse on modes. So beware.
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