Desert Between the Mountains: Mormons, Miners, Padres, Mountain Men, and the Opening of the Great Basin 1772-1869 - Hardcover

Durham, Michael S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805041613 ISBN 13: 9780805041613

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1997

Synopsis

Published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Mormons' arrival in Utah, this unique history explores how these pioneers lived, interacted, and worshipped in nineteen communities extending all the way to San Diego.

About this title

About the Author

Michael S. Durham, a former writer and correspondent for Life magazine and editor of Americana magazine, is author of The Desert States, a volume in the Smithsonian Guide to Historic America series. His latest book is the National Geographic Guide to New York City.

From Kirkus Reviews

An adequate, if hackneyed, rehearsal of a century's worth of history in the Great Basin region from Durham (a longtime editor for Life magazine). Durham's three-part narrative is not so much an original work of scholarship as an impressionistic synthesis of the state's history. This approach inevitably sacrifices depth for breadth. The book's publication is timed to coincide with the sesquicentennial celebration of the Mormon arrival in the region. But Mormons don't even appear until Durham has given us a hundred pages of Spanish explorers, fur-trapping ``mountain men,'' trailblazers like Jedediah Smith, and a reprisal of the ill-fated Donner-Reed party. This history is admittedly important, but Durham breezes through it with little analysis and too many stereotypical characterizations. When he addresses the Mormon experience, he does so with a remarkable and welcome impartiality, but his attempt to address the complexities of Mormon polygamy is unpersuasive, and he offers nothing original except a one-line, unsupported rebuttal of the long-standing tradition that Mormons crossed the frozen Mississippi River on foot. The lack of citations, here and elsewhere, is irritating. But the book has its good points: The best chapter is undoubtedly Durham's recital of the incidents leading up to the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, when a Mormon-led party--feeling persecuted and mobilized for a possible battle with the US army- -murdered more than 120 adults and children passing through southern Utah toward California. But just when the story becomes engrossing, Durham abandons it for another trajectory, exploring the opening of Utah via the telegraph, Pony Express, and railroad, and introducing still more strands to an already crowded narrative. Durham is a fine storyteller, but he wants to tell too many stories. What's more, the lack of original research leaves the book seeming more like a recapitulation than an original or necessary work. (50 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0805041613
• ISBN 13: 9780805041613
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336