Excellent trip through the opening of the American west from Lewis and Clark to Teddy Roosevelt. It also is a well-written and engaging book from an academic which is not the norm.

Every historian must choose the appropriate material to make his point, and Brands does that well, though this is far from an exhaustive treatment (he writes nothing whatsoever about the Pony Express, for instance). To his credit, he moves the narrative along by telling individual stories about people who came west and the stories themselves create the overall narrative.

Along the way, then, we meet Lewis and Clark, of course, but then other characters such as Joe Meek, a lesser-known mountain man but who stayed and made the transition to farmer in Oregon and had an impact on more than just the mountain man era; we meet Marcus Whitman, a missionary to the west, whose death had a major impact on its future; or Samuel Brannan who, brilliantly, decided there was more money to be made from gold miners than from gold at the beginning of the California Gold Rush; or Black Elk, a Lakota Sioux who lived during the entire era from Custer's last stand to the final surrender of Red Cloud and Crazy Horse; or Joseph McCoy who first recognized the value of driving Texas cattle to Kansas for loading onto trains--Kansas would never be the same; or many other similar personalities.

This is a story of people and the people are a microcosm of the history of the west. It's a great read and, once again, reminds a reader of how short really were some of the eras in the west that still remain part of our national consciousness and lore. ( )

By now I've read enough American history to recognize I'm revisiting the same epochs of the westward expansion over and over again, from Lewis and Clark to Custer's Last Stand. It's not as lackluster as it sounds. What I didn't expect was how much I actually enjoy it. It's campfire storytelling at its best.

I visualize all of history as a giant tapestry in my mind and I'm systematically filling in the gaps of my knowledge. For example, hearing for the umpteenth time the story of the Gold Rush helps me connect it to other events. Did you know that California's Bear Flag Revolt (i.e. the origin story of the state's flag) and the infamous Donner party tragedy both happened in the same year (1846), in the same state, and just a few years before the Gold Rush? I knew about these events as separate events but multiple tellings helps me connect it all.

Dreams of El Dorado by H.W. Brands is a thoughtful and thrilling chronological journey hearing these familiar stories once again (and a few new ones, at least for me). I recommend it for any American history enthusiast. ( )

It’s full of well-written, easily read prose that doesn’t strike out too much new territory or get too particularly in-depth, but it’s still an enjoyable narrative that covers a wide range of the issues that make up the history of the American West quite well. ( )

Puts The West In Context

As an American I was familiar with stories of Custer, Crazy Horse, John Jacob Astor, the 49ers, Oklahoma Sooners, Black Elk, the Alamo, Davy Crockett, and the like, but had no real sense of the chronology or the background setting for these stories. Professor Brands' book provides that chronology and context. The result is that what used to be more in the nature of folklore to me has become real history, explaining what was going on on the Frontier while the East was absorbed in the issue of southern slavery.

The book is also a welcome corrective to the mythologized and over-simplified depiction of these events one gets in a typical high school American History class. Brands takes great pains to quote from original material so that many of the historical figures can speak to the reader in their own voices. He provides the voices not just of the white American men who sought their fortune in the West, but also many of the indigenous heroes of the plains, the Rockies and Pacific Coast, as well as the Mexicans (and British Canadians) whose land was overrun in the process of American expansion. No easy answers are provided, as violence strikes, and is committed by, all the players.

As to the style of writing, Professor Brands' books are always page-turners. See for example [b:Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants|38772485|Heirs of the Founders The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants|H.W. Brands|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538403884l/38772485._SX50_.jpg|60354655] which addresses a similar period of time, but focused on events in the American East. Highly recommended. ( )

Many years ago, I read a non-fiction book whose subject was a history of the Mediterranean world. I think most people would agree that this would be a subject hard to cover in a single book. Consider, we are dealing with Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Italian Renaissance, the Middle Ages, the Crusades, the Muslim Conquest, World War II, just to name a few.

The book was a mess. How do you cover Ancient Egypt in 14 pages? The Roman Empire got a whole chapter. It had no value whatsoever for even the most cursory review of the history of the region. I felt much the same, though to a lesser degree about this book.

There is a chapter on the Lewis and Clark Expedition; a chapter on the transcontinental railroad; one on the California Gold Rush; a couple of chapters on the Native American population; a chapter on Texas cattle drives and one on Texas Independence. You get the idea, far too little exposure to far too important topics.

Instead of reading this book, read Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage, a comprehensive treatment of the Lewis and Clark Voyage of Discovery. Read Ambrose’s Nothing Like it in the World, an outstanding book on the building of the transcontinental railroad. Read Lonesome Dove, though fictional, the best novel I’ve ever read, which paints a portrait of a Texas cattle drive and interaction between white settlers and Plains Indians. Read James Michener’s Texas if you want to know everything there is to know about that state (again historical fiction).

The point is, these subjects are deserving of a deeper treatment than afforded by a book of this type. I would not even recommend it for a beginner, as such a cursory examination cannot possibly give a reader any understanding of the subject. The author, H. W. Brand, has written many fine biographies and histories. In this case, his mistake was on the scope of the subject matter. ( )