- Paperback: 688 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press (Feb 18 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0195156358
- ISBN-13: 978-0195156355
- Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 15.5 x 3.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #577,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) is best remembered for leading the first expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869. However, he should more accurately be recalled for directing the survey that mapped the region around the canyon and for establishing and directing the Bureau of American Ethnology in the Smithsonian Institution, which put the study of Native Americans on a scientific footing. Drawing on a large number of archival and published sources, Worster (history, Univ. of Kansas; Dust Bowl) traces Powell's life from his frontier childhood through his years in Washington directing both the Bureau and the Geological Survey. The author delineates the influences that led Powell to the West in the first place and shows how he fit into the intellectual milieu of the late 19th century. This thorough and detailed biography is highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries.DStephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Worster's life-of covers every detail of Powell's peregrinations and writings, fitting them into the great matters that occupied his life. A fascination with nature inspired Powell's self-education in geology and archaeology; as a young man, he lost an arm in the Battle of Shiloh, and following the Civil War, he gained fame as the explorer of the final unmapped stretches of the Colorado River. Thus wearing the laurels as the contemporary authority on all things western, including water rights and the regulation of relations with Native Americans, Powell, boosted by the political patronage of James Garfield, reached the top of the then-tiny federal bureaucracy of the 1880s, as chief of both the U.S. Geological Survey and the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology. In all, an event-crowded and courageous career, yet Powell the personality is much the fainter element here, through no fault of Worster's, whose subject was disinclined toward self-reflection. The dangerous adventure of Powell's Colorado River runs of 1869 and 1871-72 carries most of the water here and parlays Worster's opus into a stalwart position in western historiography. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
John Wesley Powell was born on 24 March 1834 in Mount Morris, New York, a tidy village of brick churches and clapboarded houses newly planted in the back country. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
John Wesley Powell was born on 24 March 1834 in Mount Morris, New York, a tidy village of brick churches and clapboarded houses newly planted in the back country. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Growing With the Country,
By
This review is from: A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (Hardcover)
Reading this book was like being present at the creation of America. It will appeal especially to U.S. history buffs and to anyone interested in the American West. Worster's telling of the feat that won Powell fame, leading the first expedition down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon, has definitely renewed my passion for exploring the West. Powell was a man of ideas, as well as action. For a quarter century he was at the forefront of debates over reserving land for American Indians, how to foster family farming in the arid West, and the thorny issue of water rights. For many years, Powell was a prominent official in Washington, as head of the U.S. Geological Survey, which he helped create, and in other positions. From what I gather in this book, Powell may have been as important as any single individual in making support of scientific research a normal function of the Federal Government. From the perspective of one man's career, Worster touches on a multitude of topics: railroads, telegraph, photography, landscape painting of the West, Mormon settlements, and many more. For the comprehension one gains of American life in those times, this biography is the equal of a first rate novel. Although a work of scholarship, it is written to be enjoyed by the general reader.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Informative but a little sterile.,
By
This review is from: A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (Hardcover)
The book is well written and informative about the events of Powell's life and the geological survey in which Powell played such a major role. My primary disappointment with the book was that I felt I didn't know the person John W. Powell much better after reading the book. The book provided very little information about Powell's life outside of his work.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Enchanting Piece of Scholarship,
By Ken "yoga51" (bloomington, il United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (Hardcover)
I enjoyed this book immensely. Thorough, evocative, thrilling, and comprehensive in its scope, it was a delight from beginning to end.I completed a major in Geography at Illinois State University many years ago, where Powell taught at one time, and I am embarrassed to admit the sad truth that in all the courses I took nary a word was ever mentioned about the great man. Considering his extraordinary contribution to our understanding of the natural world, it is all too sad.
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