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Frank McLynn

Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails Hardcover – December 10, 2002

by Frank McLynn (Author)

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McLynn (literature, Strathclyde U., UK) has himself traveled the 3,000 miles of the California and Oregon Trails, and recounts stories of settlers who travelled them across the Great Plains of North America in the 19th century. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Print length

528 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Grove Pr
Publication date

December 10, 2002
Dimensions

6.25 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0802117317
ISBN-13

978-0802117311
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rarely has a book so wonderfully brought to life the riveting tales of Americans' trek to the Pacific. A prolific British writer taken by the complex aspirations and often desperate hardships of the saints and scoundrels who filled the Western trails, McLynn (Carl Gustav Jung; Napoleon) relates their travails with a brio and understanding too seldom encountered in books on this naturally compelling subject. He vividly paints the unforgiving geography and the obstacles of human nature that often daunted but rarely defeated these pioneers. And he overlooks few of the people. There are plenty of familiar characters here, their stories freshly told: the ill-fated Donner Party, the Whitmans on their way to Oregon, mountain man Jim Bridger, the historian Francis Parkman and the Mormons. What helps make this narrative distinctive is that McLynn doesn't limit himself to known pioneers. His pen captures characters and situations from almost every wagon train that crossed the continent in seven or so pivotal years (1841-1847). Women play a large role in his pages. The outsider's perspective that allows McLynn to offer shrewd comparisons between European and American conditions does make one wish for more analysis. Most of all, though, he leaves the reader with a fuller understanding of the grit and resolve that motivated waves of people seeking escape and opportunity to head West and make the United States a continental nation in fact as well as in name. 16 pages of b&w illus.; maps.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

While the title implies that all westward trails will be covered, McLynn (literature, Strathclyde Univ.; Villa and Zapata) describes only the trail across the central United States to Oregon and California and only for the period from the Bidwell party of 1841 to the Mormon emigration of 1847-48. This allows him to explain why the emigration occurred and to put it into the context of Manifest Destiny. Drawing on numerous diaries and previously published research, he tells the story of each wagon train that set out from Missouri or Iowa during the early years but is selective for the later years, being careful to cover the Donner Party and the Mormon emigration of 1847-48 in detail. By putting both the California and Oregon trails together in one book and placing the story in a national context, McLynn provides a very useful starting point for undergraduates and general readers to begin their own investigations into this aspect of American history. He also provides an extensive bibliography to continue those investigations. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.
Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Pr; First Edition (December 10, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802117317
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802117311
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.95 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,886,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8,345 in Native American History (Books)
- #49,419 in U.S. State & Local History

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Elsbeththemaid

Highly interesting.

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2020

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I found this book to be well organized and riveting from beginning to end. The everyday lives and events of those crossing the plains is fascinating. There was so much I didn't know before reading this and so many things I hadn't considered. Being a descendant of Mormon pioneer stock myself, this is a highly interesting and entertaining read.

4 people found this helpful

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William Thomas

Author lets reader know how smart his!!

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2021

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What a disappointment this book turned out to be. If you like reading a book where the author goes well out of his way to prove to the reader his immense vocabulary and needlessly uses (for lack of a better term) "Big Words" throughout his paragraphs, this is your book. I am not the smartest person who likes to read a good book, but I am far from the dumbest. I have a pretty decent vocabulary and read the works of many different authors without difficulty, but this book is an exercise in how to look up the meaning of words on your phone (or dictionary if you have the time.
Wagons West should be an interesting topic, but instead, it's a journey into the mind of an author who is determined to let us all know how many words he knows, that most of us don't.

One person found this helpful

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Stanley R. Schneider

Excellent book, well worth reading

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2013

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I read Frank McLynn's biography of Napoleon, and was surprised to see a British author would undertake a book on pioneer wagon trains in the western U.S. I certainly learned a lot by reading this book. Just beware that this book only really covers the period 1840 to 1848, which even by the author's own admission, only accounted for some 14,000 people and would be dwarfed by the migrations in the 1850, 1860's and 1870's, which are only briefly alluded to. Some other readers have complained that the opening couple of chapters are slow going, but I found the information on the backgrounds, demographics, and rationale of the pioneers, to be fascinating. McLynn's occasional comparisons to the Boers in South Africa is certainly an original perspective. I did find some of the recounting of the various wagon trains to get somewhat repetitive and monotonous. McLynn also has the habit of seemingly wanting to relate the names of every person in every wagon train, that was unnecessary to the story and confusing. The chapter on the Donners was truly gruesome and somewhat confusing as they were spread over multiple camps in the Sierras and there were four successive relief parties trying to get to them. The chapter on the Mormons was also enlightening. A good way to follow along on the journeys, is to have an IPAD alongside opened to Google maps with the terrain function turned on. The book did have a number of maps, but they are tough to use as an e-book, which is the way I read this. For that reason, I don't recommend an e-book for this. Get it in hard or soft cover instead. I certainly recommend this work by McLynn.

Stanley R. Schneider

7 people found this helpful

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Packed full of details about the overland trails of the 1840's

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2009

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Wagons West by Frank McLynn is another great book by an author who has had a string of them. This book covers the era between the end of the fur traders and the start of the gold rush and tells the stories of the migrants who crossed deserts and mountains often without accurate maps or proper supplies to reach the land of milk and honey in California and Oregon. While the book focuses on "the Oregon Trail" it also cover the Santa Fe Trail and other trails into California. The Oregon Trail is a series of different trials most commonly thought of as leaving from Independence Missouri but could also leave via Boise or Kansas City to name a few with an end destination of Oregon or northern California. The book covers the notable wagons of the Donner's and their ill fated venture ending in displays on cannibalism and depredation towards women and children. It also covers the resettlement of the Mormons and how they changed life on the trails by settling in Salt Lake City. It is (like his other books) very detail oriented and there is a lot to take in during the short amount of pages. As some others have noted this is not a quick read but well worth the time and packed full of very strong information about the overland trails and the people who rode them. For those who have a knowledge about how the US changed during these years and want to get the details of that change this is a perfect book to read.

6 people found this helpful

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Comprehensive

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2009

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I have read quite a few prairie/pioneer/westward expansion histories this summer, and Frank McLynn has done the best job assembling and synthesizing information. His chapters go year-by-year through the 1840 migrations. Each chapter could stand alone as a long essay in human nature. The impressive feats of persistence and grit demonstrated in these early years of wagon trains are detailed and punctuated with quoted journals and memoirs. Excellent work.

The chapter on the Donner party is... grisly in the extreme. It is told in such a matter-of-fact way that it gave me a nightmare. I'm not a squeamish person, but I found myself looking away from the page several times during that chapter, just to get a hold on myself. The understated nature of McLynn's writing almost makes it more appalling.

Liked the whole thing, but I thought his choice of an ending poem was poor. I don't think the excerpt of Walt Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" can be read as particularly pro-pioneers, which is out of tune with the rest of the book.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

BetterNameThanBefore

What an amazing book! I knew comparatively little about the American ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2017

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What an amazing book! I knew comparatively little about the American West just what I remember from my early childhood at the tail end of the Cowboys and Indians boom which sort of petered out in the early 1970s. However this shows how much raw material the writers and film-makers had to use and how in some ways what they produced wasn't as far-fetched as I used to think.
This book is long enough to totally immerse yourself in , well written, comprehensive and informative in its detail and covers just about every angle of the subject.
As others have said one of the books where you feel slightly bereft when it's finally finished.
Now I just need something similar on the Indian Wars and their protagonists - something like this which is neutral and fair when it talks about the Indians and the settlers..

Zulu Warrior

Wagons West

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 17, 2014

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I looked forward to reading this surprisingly large book, I have a great interest in this era and of the overland trails, the early chapters of this book although interesting in places tended to skip between different wagon trains making it difficult to actually know which wagon train you are reading about.
The final two chapters were excellent, the story of the famous Donner party, caught stranded in a severe winter, starving and resorting to cannaballism to survive, then the massive exodus of the Mormons to thier chosen land at Salt Lake, this is a good book as far as the depth it goes into to try and show the courage and endurance of those who endured terrible hardships to reach thier new lives in California or Oregon.

One person found this helpful

Andrea

Enlightening, engaging great read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2020

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The first 70 pages are a slog but so worth it after that. I learned so much about Indian tribes and American geography as I’d a map open to reference places. My book club ladies struggled a wee bit with it but those who endured to the end really liked it.

Amazon Customer

A super gone west read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

A very interesting book indeed, and the only adverse critique being that the author concentrated his attention to the latter years of 1840's but by gum, what years they were. He goes into great depth about what actually what went on, deeds ranging from great courage, thro' bloody mindlessness to just pure selfeshness. I never realised that cannibal deeds occurred. That was never on the TV "Waggon Train"!!. But it was a super read and what courageous people they must have been, even to the point of recklessness.
Absolutely recommended.

phil

superb reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 15, 2014

Verified Purchase

A large and extensive history that allows the reader to understand the motives and hardships undertaken by these pioneers. The book has been compared to "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee", I agree!!

One person found this helpful

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