Frances Parkman Rdr PB (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780306808234)

Francis Parkman (1823-1893), struggling against painful chronic illnesses and very largely self-taught in his field, was not only a pioneering historian but an enduring one. His monumental seven-volume history of discovery, conquest, and empire-building in the New World, France and England in North America (the final volume, Montcalm and Wolfe, is available in its entirety from Da Capo Press/ Perseus Books Group), remains unrivaled for its power, depth, scope, accuracy, and literary artistry. This reader, superbly edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian in the Parkman tradition, comprises approximately one-seventh of the original. Rather than stitch together a patchwork of brief, disconnected extracts, Morison has chosen whole chapters or groups of chapters, thereby allowing the reader to follow a story from start to finish, and what stories they are: Champlain's efforts to establish a French empire in the vast forest wilderness; the torture and martyrdom of Father Jogues; La Salle's western expeditions and his murder by mutineers; the bloody Deerfield Massacre; the improbable, madcap, and successful siege of Louisbourg; the swift, dramatic battle on Quebec's Plains of Abraham, in which the fate of a continent was decided; and much more. The result is both an enthralling portrait of early North American colonial history and an unsurpassed introduction to the works of Francis Parkman.

Author: Samuel Eliot Morison
ISBN-10: 0306808234
ISBN-13: 9780306808234
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Language: English
Published: 03/22/1998
Pages: 552
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.58lbs
Size: 8.34h x 5.44w x 1.28d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/01/1998 pg. 143