From the title, one would think this a type of travel journal, a panorama of episodes along the way, a sequence of stations between the starting off point and the destination. Instead, the overall weight of the book is given to glaciers, their descriptions, their influence on the landscape, their geological record, the discovery of new glaciers, and other characteristics of these moving rivers of ice. While Muir offers descriptive powers unequaled among authors on nature, never repeating himself though constantly repeating his subject, the sheer repetition tends to bog the work down. Two whole pages might contribute to our view of a particular glacier, and suddenly Muir reports that he's finished a 200-mile leg of his journey on foot. He tells us when he's climbed a glacier, and along the way we've missed an entire week. Time and space almost have no medium in this publication, utterly lost when gazing upon a glacier. For nature lovers who will never go to Alaska, the descriptions in this book make the ranges and glaciers come alive in print, but as a dramatic journey, a travelogue, or a field manual for the Alaskan bush, this book forms only a vague shadow.

Nature is a beautiful and highly complicated phenomena of this world. Many have sought to understand it and capture its essence in writing. The nature writings of John Muir succeed in capturing the beauty of nature as well as the scientific aspect. I have to be honest, I wasn't that enthused about reading a book about science. I expected Muir's book to be identical to a science textbook, definitely not my idea of enjoyment. However, his book was actually full of detailed descriptions and creative uses of similes, metaphors, and analogies. In fact, it completely changed my perception of a scientific novel.

In his book, "Travels in Alaska", Muir brings alive the magnificence of the vast expanses of unexplored Alaskan territory. His prose reveals his enthusiasm for nature, and he weaves clear and distinct pictures through his words. Muir's writing is very personal. His favorable feelings toward the land are very apparent, and reading the book is like reading his diary or journal. He avoids using scientific jargon that would confuse and frustrate the average reader; his words are easily understood.

Muir also uses very detailed descriptions throughout "Travels in Alaska". Although at times his painstaking description is a plus, at others, he seems to take it a little too far. Numerous times throughout the book, Muir spent a paragraph or two talking about something slightly insignificant. He would go off on a tangent of enthusiasm for something as simple as a sunrise or the rain. While his careful observances make the book enjoyable, the sometimes excessive detail tends to detract from the point he was trying to make. The description also reveals that his heart and soul was in his research; this became very evident upon reading the long and thoughtful descriptions.

"Travels in Alaska" can be appreciated by a wide audience. Muir shines light upon the Alaskan territory, and he is detailed in his account of the many people he meets. Anyone could read the book and find enjoyment learning about Alaska when it was for the most part unsettled. Muir shares with the readers his keen insight upon the various Indian tribes that lived in Alaska. At one point in the book, he gives a very detailed description of one tribe's feasting and dancing. His observances capture exactly what he saw and the feelings these observances evoked in him.

John Muir's writing is of high quality. He incorporates beautiful and creative similes, metaphors, and analogies. His prose is very poetic, which makes it an enjoyable read. For example, Muir says that "when we contemplate the world as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty." His work is also very organized. The book is divided into 3 sections, or parts of his trip, as well as separate chapters devoted to specific subjects. Muir spends one chapter describing his trip to Puget Sound, another on Wrangell Island, etc. The book follows a specific format that ensures that everything is easily followed and understood.

Truthfully, I was impressed with the writing, and the fact that it was nothing like a textbook. It incorporated the literary aspect so well, that the book held my interest whereas a textbook would not have. I had the wrong impression of a scientific novel, and I urge anyone unfamiliar with the genre, to give "Travels in Alaska" a fair try. It may just change your mind about scientific writing.

I confess up front, it's been a few years since I read Muir's Travels in Alaska. Yet significant aspects I remember well. Given Muir's exuberance for life and almost everything he encounters in his travels, one almost looses view of Muir the botanist and geologist. But not quite. Here we find the author contemplating the activity of glaciers and documenting the flora of southeast Alaska. Muir (who tended strongly toward vegetarianism) gleefully entertaining himself by foiling duck hunters. Baffling the locals by happily wandering out into major storms.
The book is a journal of Muir's 1879, 1880, and 1890 trips (he wouldn't mind if we called them adventures) to SE Alaska's glaciers, rivers, and temperate rain forests. He died while preparing this volume for publication.
I remind myself, and anyone reading this, that Muir isn't for every reader. And, as other reviewers have stated, this may not be the volume in which to introduce oneself to the one-of-a-kind John Muir. One reviewer doesn't think that Muir is entirely credible in these accounts. I won't say whether or not this is wrong, but I tend to a different view. For some of us -- and certainly for Muir -- wilderness is a medicine, a spiritual tonic, so to speak. For the individual effected in this way, physical impediments and frailties rather dissolve away when he is alone in wildness. I once heard Graham Mackintosh (author of Into a Desert Place) speak of this. In all of his travels alone in the desert, he doesn't recall having ever been sick. This may not sound credible to some, but I strongly suspect it is true.
If you like Muir's writings, read this book. If you like the stuff of Best Sellers, perhaps you should look elsewhere.

I'm reading this book for an lower division undergraduate course in East Asian History. It's better for an upper division course. The book is well indexed, however, there is no bibliography. The only extra is a section that acknowledges the illustrations, which is not very helpful for me. There is a timeline of the dynasties of each country in the back of the book, but it is so tiny it is not helpful. Anyone know of an East Asian wall chart timeline? The topics of each dynasty focus on economics, arts and literature, military, Buddhism and Confucianism, growth and development, declines and failings. East Asian history is interesting. However, there is way too much information in this one book which makes it very difficult to follow, recall, and understand. If instructors choose to use this book, please provide additional optional resources (like a timeline wall chart) because this book does not point the reader to seek other resources. A good book will have a bibliography. Since this book does not, I conclude the authors think this is the only book one needs to read, which it is not.

I remember buying this textbook back in the '80's for a course at Harvard taught by the professors themselves. Back then, the book cost [money]. I can't believe they now want over [money]for it. That's insane. Sure, it's full of factual information, but it's hardly unique information -- these are historical facts available anywhere, with very little opinion or perspective or even personality woven in. (Indeed, the book is as dry as the Gobi Desert.) Furthermore, they first wrote this book back in 1975. Updating it could not have required that much labor, particularly since Harvard already pays these profs to do nothing but talk about Asia. Professors are getting away with extortion knowing they have a captive audience (students) required to buy their textbook. Yes, it's a good textbook. Is it worth over [money]? Not for a Chinese minute. Here's hoping that they're donating their royalties to North Korean famine relief.

This is a fine book, one I have assigned for years in my introductory classes along with de Bary's Sources of Chinese Tradition Vol. 1. Now, however, there is a new edition of Sources using the newer pinyin romanization system. Reischauer still uses the old Wade-Giles system. So I can't assign it any longer - I can't expect my students to have the two basic books in the course use different romanizations. Could not Houghton-Mifflin redo Reischauer using pinyin? It could be done with no effort by using a simple replace function on a computer.

This book is much better than vol. 1 (Dodge, Ply. and Chrysler Police Cars 1957 - 1978). That still doesn't say much, as the writing is elementary, repetitious and it's quite apparent that the author thinks that Chrysler never made a bad police car. I'd like some objectivity here. The info is there, you just have to hunt for it and make use of peculiar table formations (although again, at least there seems to be a modicum of uniformity in the tables versus the first volume). I had high hopes for this book, and I'm still waiting for an excellent book on police vehicles. I've yet to see one!

Vehicle information discribed in the book is accurate. Anybody that owns or wants to purchase these types of police cars would have the lowdown on the good and the bad in owning one these vehicles. Overall the book is interesting to read, though I would of liked to have seen some color photos along with the black and white photos.

i have heard alot about the man and the book from many people. so i decided to buy the book and read it myself. i must say that for a person that lived with the indians for such a long time it seems to me that denig could not overcome his prejudiced ideas of a civilized or "savage" people and although he describes the manners of the indians in much detail he speaks about them with great arrogance, prejudice and contemp much of the time. to call the indians savages, heathens, and some more contemptuous words like these after living with them for years and marrying one of them, does not show much for the man. one should take his information with much prudence and caution.

I entirely agree with the other reviewer that Denig was very prejudiced about Native Americans. For me, the value in the book - and it is great - is to have rare information about these tribes before their near-disappearance. Denig seems to save his harshest criticisms for the tribes that were most independent, and his stories about these groups give us a glimpse into their lives. I would very much recommend this book to people who are interested in the early 19th century world of the Upper Missouri.

This book will be good for those who do not want to read the journals of L & C but want a complete, thorough report. The book gave many specific details, and often got sidetracked off into extra tidbits of information. For those looking for just a general overview of this journey, this book is not the place to find it.