|
|  | Author: Timothy Egan
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $15.56
as of 3/18/2010 12:43 CDT details
You Save: $11.44 (42%)
New (50) Used (24) Collectible (5) from $13.00
Seller: value_booksellers
Rating:  74 reviews
Sales Rank: 2275
Format: Deckle Edge
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1St Edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0618968415
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.911
EAN: 9780618968411
ASIN: 0618968415
Publication Date: October 19, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW: NEVER READ: ...!!!!.(may have faint shelf wear)..ALL ORDERS SHIP SAME OR NEXT BUSINESS DAY, FREE POSTAL DELIVERY CONFIRMATION FOR U.S. ORDERS, TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE !!!!
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 41-45 of 74
 Another Excellent Book from Timothy Egan October 9, 2009
Gregg Eldred (Avon Lake, OH USA)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
Timothy Egan, the author of The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and The Fire That Saved America, became one of my "must read" authors after the publication of his excellent book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time. In The Big Burn, Egan turns his attention and exceptional research and storytelling skills to an event and individuals unknown to most Americans; a wildfire that, in August 1910, consumed more that 3 million acres, five towns, and about 100 lives. All in the span of two days. To give you an idea the size of 3 millions acres, Egan tells you it would be as if the entire state of Connecticut was burned to the ground over the weekend.
Contents:
Prologue
Part I - In on the Creation
Part II - What They Lost
Part III - What They Saved
Notes on Sources
Acknowledgements
Index
The Prologue sets up what will happen in Part II - What They Lost. It is a section of the book that fills the reader with dread. To reduce your anxiety, Egan inserts "In on the Creation," a slow build to what will come. In this section of the book, he takes his time introducing the individuals; President Teddy Roosevelt, a very progressive President that was instrumental in the creation of National Parks as well as National Forests, Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the newly formed Forest Service and a very strange person, John Muir, the corrupt members of the Senate, at odds with the President and his idea of protecting vast tracts of virgin forest, and the early Forest Service Rangers, charged with protecting the forests and upholding the laws in a very lawless area of the United States. After racing through the Prologue, it will take some time to adapt to the pace of "In on the Creation." However, the payoff is the thrill ride that is "What They Lost," made more tragic by the knowledge that regardless of the heroics, nothing prepared the Forest Service Rangers, the US government, or the remote towns for the fast, intense (temperatures were estimated in some parts to be 2000 degrees) fire sweeping through the states of Idaho, Montana, and Washington. Fire jumping from tree top to tree top. Trees exploding as their sap boiled. Hurricane force winds knocking down giant trees. Heat so intense that it melted glass and metal and fire that moved so fast that neither man nor beast could out run it. Taking the lessons of this wildfire, Egan then investigates the aftermath, some lessons have remained to this day, while others are forgotten, doomed to repeat. Finally, Egan doesn't keep the reader wondering about the major players after the fire, he relates their stories, some heartbreaking, others uplifting. The result is a powerful story of early America and a forest fire that shaped our views of nature.
I never thought that Egan could equal The Worst Hard Time, but I was wrong. The Big Burn is every bit as good as that excellent book; made better by the conflict between early conservationists and the people that wanted the land to further improve their bank accounts, the idealistic, young Forest Rangers, the incredible lawlessness of some early settlements, and the common men and women that rose to greatness in the face of nature at her worst. Egan has penned another masterpiece concerning early America, one that hits hardest when you become emotionally attached to several individuals. The one that will live with me for a long time is Ed Pulaski, whose invention is still used today by the Forest Service and fire fighters the world over, the "Pulaski tool."
Superb account of an uniquely American story October 4, 2009
Malvin (Frederick, MD USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan evocatively reconstructs the massive forest fire that ravaged the American west in 1910. Mr. Egan dramatizes the event, sketching compelling portraits of the many ordinary people who were unwittingly swept into this moment in history. The author is equally adept at contextualizing the fierce political stuggles of the time and demonstrating how the fire proved decisive in shaping U.S. land use policy ever since.
Mr. Egan does an exemplary job of combing through a wide range of source documents to bring the story to life. The reader is brought back to a very different time and place in America where towns such as Taft, Montana gave refuge to people who chose to live in open defiance of the law and where big money ruled. The author recalls the heroes including the brave forest ranger Ed Pulaski, the steadfast Buffalo Soldiers, and pioneer Pinkie Adair; and some of the many others who got caught up in an extraordinary event that permanently changed the trajectory of countless lives.
Central to Mr. Egan's political narrative is the visionary leadership of Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt versus the short-sighted greed of individuals such as William Clark, Weldon Heyburn and the other Robber Barons of the Gilded Age. Mr. Egan reminds us that the promise of preserving the West's natural resources for future generations rather than its exploitation for short-term profit was fiercely contested at the time. Tragically, it took the sacrifice of the heroic forest rangers who perished in the Big Burn to galvanize public support and permanently establish the national forest system as we know it today.
I highly recommend this superb account of an uniquely American story to everyone.
 The Big Burn by Timothy Egan September 29, 2009
K. L. Cotugno (San Francisco, CA USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
It seems hard to believe that this book of such immediacy was written about events that are 100 years old. Timothy Egan brought a contemporary sensibility to the Great Depression in his award winning THE WORST HARD TIME and with this wonderful book, avoids the sophomore curse. He does a carefully researched job of presenting the people involved, and has the good fortune to have in Roosevelt a true American superstar, possibly the first that can be called as such with his canny appreciation of how the new technology of the time can be used to his benefit. It also doesn't seem an accident that the newest Ken Burns series about the creation of American National Park system is running on PBS.
Bully!! September 27, 2009
Michael DENNISUK (trenton, michigan USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Timothy Egan has given us a thrilling read that stands along side "Isaac's Storm" and "The Perfect Storm" as great reads about natural disasters. Mr. Egan seemlessly blends the creation of the forest service and the conservation movement with one of the greatest wldfire's this country has ever seen. The first section of the book focuses on Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot's activism in setting aside National Forests for all to enjoy and the creation and expansion of the forest service. The book picks up speed in the second section when we relive "the Big Burn" - a raging wldfire that engulfed most of the northwest. Mr Egan creates a great narrative built around heroic characters like Ed Pulaski, Elders Koch, Pinkie Adair, Joe Halm and Bill Weigle. The final section deals with the fire's aftermath. One cannot help but think of Norman Maclean's classic "Young Men and Fire". This a great read, an extraordinary tale and is highly recommended!!
A forgotten event that helped shape our nation's future September 25, 2009
Todd B. Frary (Atlanta, GA USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"The Big Burn" is appropriately timed for the centennial of the famed Great Fire of 1910 which galvanized support for the U.S. Forest Service and for conserving more land and on the heels of Douglas Brinkley's The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, which chronicles Theodore Roosevelt's efforts to advance conservationism. The two books couldn't be timed more appropriately for roughly simultaneous release: "Wilderness Warrior" focuses on Roosevelt's advancement of the conservationist cause and "The Big Burn" focuses on his disciples, those early members of the U.S. Forest Service such as Gifford Pinchot and the many rangers who valiantly fought against the Great Fire. But "Big Burn" is above all things the story of the devastating Great Fire of 1910 as well as the story of those individuals who started and populated the early Forest Service in those early days, particularly Gifford Pinchot and Ed Pulaski. "Big Burn" chronicles the inadequacies of the early Forest Service and what they faced in trying to conserving national lands and national parks against the moneyed interests who wanted to exploit those lands. As a journalist Egan is writing somewhat out of field and does at times betray the objectivity that historians strive for. But Egan's lively writing fairly crackles with life, more than making up for any occasional lack of objectivity and from reading "Big Burn" it's clear that Egan is pro-environmentalist.
"Big Burn" is a small and a somewhat forgotten saga in the history of our country. Likely few have heard of this particular event, but given the continuing threat of fires in the mountain west, it's not only something to be aware of, but a cautionary tale. There are limits to the power of man and technology. In the process of trying to master and harness nature we only expose our inability at doing so. While not as ostensibly as pro-conservationist as Brinkley's "Wilderness Warrior" "Big Burn" nonetheless inspires our awe of nature and our wishes to preserve it for future generations.
Showing reviews 41-45 of 74
|
|
|
Return to Math.com | |
