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Loading... The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destinyby Michael Wallis
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  Autolycus21 | Oct 10, 2023 |    ) dimajazz | Mar 5, 2022 | The book describes the societal makeup of the party, for some reason, I had always thought it was two Donner families who experienced this epic disaster, that isn't correct, it was close to 90 people involved there in the pass. I can't say that this is a favorite book because that would be terrible, but it is quite interesting to this history buff. Highly recommend if you like to read about true, nonfiction experiences of early pioneers. ( ) JopLee1 | Feb 8, 2022 |  ) Lemeritus | Nov 17, 2021 |  ) Jeff.Rosendahl | Sep 21, 2021 |
Wallis has delved into an extraordinary mass of original material, documents, diaries, accounts and letters, as well as new sources apparently not available to previous authors, and produced not only a definitive account of the Donner tragedy, but also a book so gripping it can scarcely be put down.... With a keen eye for the particulars, Wallis has done a superb job sifting through lurid tabloid moralizing and unreliable accounts to explore the complex truths of human beings pushed to the absolute limits of existence. The tale did indeed have its heroes and villains, but even so, as Wallis notes, “there were no shades of black and white, but only gray.” Forty-one people died, and 46 survived. Virginia Reed wrote about her ordeal to a cousin in Illinois, concluding with some sturdy and practical American advice: “Remember, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can.” His tale moves at the pace of the settlers’ covered wagons plodding across the prairies. If Wallis’ intense research turned up a detail, you can bet that it made its way into his book. His index lists 338 names, most of them belonging to obscure people. Readers will struggle to keep them straight....Still, at book’s end, author Wallis render a terse — and stern — verdict: “What made the Donner Party so distinctive was that this group of people had originally set out to civilize what they saw as a barbaric land. The acts of survival cannibalism refigured their story with a cruel twist — the civilizers themselves became savages.” Prolific popular writer Wallis (David Crockett: Lion of the West, 2011, etc.) brings his storytelling skills to an unusual episode in American westward expansion.... Although the Donner Party has attracted attention over the years and has achieved a certain macabre fascination in Western lore, Wallis succeeds in offering new documentary evidence as well as an absorbing narrative. He provides valuable insight into a 19th-century phenomenon in which thousands of pioneers sought land, new opportunities, and adventure in support of American exceptionalism. Solid Western history that enhances the understanding of a tragic tale by highlighting the strong human dimension through the accounts of participants before, during, and after the expedition. Adopting an empathetic approach bolstered by studious research and geographical contextualization, biographer Wallis (David Crockett) reclaims the horrific story of the infamously ill-fated wagon train from the annals of sensationalism...The Donner Party's struggles and determination continue to fascinate, and Wallis's comprehensive account of bravery, luck, and failure illuminates the realities of westward expansion. AwardsNotable Lists
In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and a restless caravan prepared for what they hoped would be the most rewarding journey of a lifetime. But in eagerly pursuing what would a century later become known as the "American dream," this optimistic-yet-motley crew of emigrants was met with a chilling nightmare; in the following months, their jingoistic excitement would be replaced by desperate cries for help that would fall silent in the deadly snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada. We know these early pioneers as the Donner Party, a name that has elicited horror since the late 1840s. Now, historian Michael Wallis continues his life's work of parsing fact from fiction to tell the true story of one of the most embroidered sagas in Western history. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)978.02History and Geography North America Western U.S. 19th CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.83)
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Wikipedia in English
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This book was exactly what I hoped it would be, a rigorously researched, meticulously detailed, and well written account of the whole history of the Donner Party. I started this book after getting about halfway through History of the Donner Party by C.F. McGlashan. This book, published by a journalist in 1880, no doubt paved the way for latter books on the subject, however, the writing reads like what I imagine 1880’s tabloids or penny dreadfuls, full of overwrought melodrama in a historical account that scarcely needs the embellishment. Added to this, the McGlashan book has some odd passages to say the least, for instance, when the forward party decide to kill their native American guides from Fort Sutter (the only time in the whole ordeal humans were killed for food) the writer describes the guides docile souls, grateful for being killed. While this is certainly a possibility it seems a remote one but the author endorses it wholeheartedly.
Michael Wallis’s book suffers from none of these short comings. In addition to ample footnotes and background research, Wallis adds historical context to the Donner Story, placing it squarely in the age of American expansionism and Manifest Destiny. The writer takes us through the whole thing, starting off with small biographies of key figures back east and their decision to move west, following them along the trail and through Hastings cut off, the ordeal at Donner Lake and the Sierras, and afterwards when the survivors went on to live their lives.
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