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37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Titanic Achievement, February 20, 2002
This multi-volume edition of Parkman's magnum opus might appear initially daunting, as it covers more than 1,200 pages of material. Suffice it say, however, that the rewards are entirely worth the effort of fording your way through this majestic work. Parkman triumphed over numerous personal disabilities (extremely poor eyesight and recurring pain in his limbs), to produce some of the most important and transcendent histories of the 19th century, works that secured him a place in the American Pantheon, beside Prescott and Bancroft. He has been interpreted both as an example of literary Romanticism by some, and as a supreme pessimist by others. His objective as an historian was to "while scrupulously and rigorously adhering to the truth of facts, to animate them with the life of the past, and, so far as might be, clothe the skeleton with flesh." This notion is reflected repeatedly throughout these volumes. His style is highly descriptive, borrowing as it does from his numerous treks to the sites he writes of. The Jesuits, trappers, governors, nuns and explorers he depicts come across as flesh-and blood, breathing, human beings, engaged in real activities. He has little place for abstraction, and never dwells overlong on minutiae. The ramifications of particular pacts or treaties, for instance, are subordinate to actual events and places. When he takes the reader into an Indian log-house, he/she can practically taste the smoke as it permeates the air. When it comes to Native Americans, Parkman is far from sentimental. In fact, he bridled at the notion, common in 19th Century Romanticism (particularly Rousseau and even more conspicuously in Chateaubriand's <Atala>), of the Indian as noble savage. Parkman's earlier book on the Oregon Trail stemmed in part from his experiences amongst the Sioux on the Western Plains. The Indians depicted in these pages are, for the most part, more savage than noble. The Iroquois are especially ferocious in their raiding parties and in their methods of reprisal. Those who fell victim to their wrath were in for days and nights of unspeakable torture. Parkman describes these scenes almost too vividly. But as he himself would note,
"Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time." There are some academics that would argue that Parkman is not as objective as he would like us to think. He has a fairly consistent Protestant, Bostonian, Brahmin bias as regarding Catholicism, for instance. His view of Native Americans is hardly what could be termed politically correct. However one may feel about his viewpoint, one can not dismiss his power of depiction, or the scope of his genius and enterprise. When taking into account the fact that he produced volume upon volume of history, under the most debilitating circumstances, there can be no denying that he qualifies, as perhaps no one else, as "The American Gibbon." For the reader who wants to relive history at its most vivid, Parkman provides the goods. He paints in realistic detail the struggles, adventures and misadventures, the faith and foibles, great tribulations and monumental victories of an exceedingly noteworthy cast of characters. There are the infinitely stoical, but often-scheming Jesuits. There is the monomaniacal, driven, but honest-dealing and ultimately tragic figure of LaSalle. Champlain is another noteworthy figure, truly heroic in stature. The most heroic figure, however, may after all be Parkman himself. Shaped as he was by the notions of greatness fostered by such writers as Carlyle, it was a state he strove consciously to achieve. This collection, along with others in the Modern Library series, indicates that he achieved his goal. Thanks to The Modern Library for making authors such as Parkman accessible once more.
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by Francis Parkman
by Henry Adams
by David Hackett Fischer
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