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Title: 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!
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