Customer Reviews

Niagara Falls: An Intimate Portrait

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This book touches on the main points of Niagara Falls history without going into too much detail about any of them. I got the feeling while reading it that it was meant for the casual tourist - a kind of souvenir that a tourist might bring home from a trip to the fall, look at once or twice and then forget about rather than an "intimate portrait" of the place, people and history. More pictures would have made it a better souvenir book. More text and details would have made it a better history. As it is, it's not very good at being either of these.

If you're interested in a detailed yet highly readable history of the falls and the wonderfully fascinating people associated with their history, try Pierre Berton's "Niagara: A History of the Falls". For an up to date, modern look at the falls, "Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies" by GInger Strand is great - if slightly too snarky/hip at times. Strand updates and corrects Berton's history and she also delves into the modern history of the the area (i.e. Love Canal, the effects of industrialization) so the two books compliment each other nicely.