This book is a standard Old Testament introduction used in many seminaries. It comes from a moderate conservative theological perspective. It provides excellent detail on current Old Testament scholarship, as well as providing excellent introductions to each of the books of the Old Testament. It is amply illustrated with B/W photos and drawings. It has very useful indexes and bibliographies.

George Bird Grinnell is in one point different from other historians of the Old West. He personnally knew many of the cele-brities of that age, and what is written in his books are found-ed upon their stories. Major Frank North and his brother,Captain Luther North /Grinnell's close friend/ commanded this unique force of Indian auxiliaries. Unique,because they never lost a fight or even a single life during the long line of their battles and skirmishes. They patrolled the building of the railway and fought in major battles like the one of the Summit Springs.Also an important part of the book is the short history of the Pawnee Nation and it serves as well as a biography of the North brothers.And all this is in the highly readable style of George Bird Grinnell with full of westernisms.

James Cook's "Fifty Years on the Old Frontier" is an autobiographical narrative of his life experiences in the American West. Cook's endeavors during the latter part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century encompassed a whole host of occupations: cattle drover, tour guide, hunter, rancher, and military scout. Cook eventually married into money and retired to a ranch near Agate, Nebraska where he consorted with Red Cloud and other old Sioux warriors. He also collaborated with several university professors on fossil digs located around his ranch, eventually becoming an amateur scientist in his own right. Cook's accounts of his adventures in the Old West provide a compelling insight about the realities and myths of America's movement across the North American continent. James Cook died in 1942.

The beginning chapters of the book outline the author's work as a cattle popper and drover along the old cattle trails through Texas and Kansas. The dangers that threatened the well being of these tough as nails trail hands constitutes the bulk of Cook's narrative. What quickly becomes apparent is that these guys were not the dapper dandies we see in films and fiction; they worked hard everyday to get those longhorns up to Kansas and to the railroad. Cook recounts the disagreements amongst drovers, an experience with hail and a tornado, stampedes, the threat of wild animals, and the dangers posed by Indians. A separate chapter discusses the fate of the wild mustangs, yet another sad chapter in the annals of the conquest of the West. Once the businessmen moved in and discovered a market for horses, they rounded up the mustangs by the thousands through crude trapping techniques and by depriving Indians of their stocks. Horses injured in the process were ruthlessly shot by the trappers. The picture that emerges from the author's narrative about trail life is one of greedy exploitation leading to environmental damage.

Relations with Indians are a central theme of the book. The movie image of tremendous battles between natives and American military forces does not find expression in this story. Instead, Cook portrays Indians as just another obstacle to the settlement of the West. Cattle drivers had to pay attention to Indian raiders who sought to steal horses and cattle, but it was more important to worry about weather and stampedes. In the last section of the book, Indians play a bigger role in the story. The author outlines in detail his relationship with the Sioux after they had been confined to the reservation. Another chapter deals with the Geronimo uprising in New Mexico, an incident Cook experienced first hand during his tenure as a ranch manager in the area. He takes the opportunity of the uprising to tell the truth about the Indians and the military forces during the campaign. According to the author, Geronimo and his Apache warriors did not fight the military head on, but relied on hit and run tactics with strategic retreats to Mexico to stay one step ahead of the law. The military relied heavily on scouts, often mixed blood Indians, in order to track down the rogue Indians. Geronimo eventually surrendered when an army officer talked him into giving himself up.

Cook's interest in the West is not a broad picture of western history, but rather groupings of anecdotes about his individual experiences in the area. The reader often has to read between the lines of these engaging stories in order to ascertain the reality of the situation on the frontier. For example, Cook discusses in depth the time the Sioux on the reservation asked him to be their government appointed agent. The author provides several letters of endorsement written on his behalf by politicians and bankers in Nebraska and Wyoming. The letters praise Cook as a man of the West on excellent terms with the local Indian population. A cynic can see the larger dynamic tensions between East and West in these letters. The locals want one of their own in the job because up to this point the position was always held by someone from back east. Moreover, a western agent could deliver lucrative supply contracts to western businesses and perform favors for western politicians. Why else would bankers take the time to write a recommendation letter to the government? It certainly had little to do with goodwill towards the Sioux Indians, especially since this wheedling went on at roughly the same time as the Ghost Dance fiasco.

I am astonished that no one else has reviewed this book. This is a great text for the Old West history buff or those interested in Indian/White relations during the late 19th century. James Cook's "Fifty Years on the Old Frontier" is an entertaining, yet at some times sad, account of the realities of our frontier days.

I will admit right off that I am biased because, as Public Affairs Officer in the U.S. Interests Section, I hosted James Michener's stay in Havana while he collected data for "Caribbean" and later collaborated with John Kings on the photography used in the book. Despite his glowing praise for my services (page 27), Michener was an old hand at adapting to circumstances and hardly needed me to orient him. He arrived with a fixed agenda and stuck with it. We departed from the agenda from time to time as his curiosity grew and Cuban contacts of mine beguiled him. As for his impressions, they are lucid, provocative, insightful and of course superficial. To know Cuba requires years of delving into the psychology of the quixotic Cuban people and their turbulent history. Michener's kitchen Spanish was adequate in restaurants but hardly up to a good conversation. I wondered how his early masterpiece "Iberia" could be so complete without a solid knowledge of Spanish? Anyway, he asked me to take 1000 photos of Havana which I did happily under the watchful eyes of Cuban security forces. His editors selected 70 or so of mine and 12 of Kings for inclusion. (No reference to my photopgraphy is given in the book by my own request as a diplomat shouldn't be caught moonlighting for the presses). I believe Michener used them for references to his quick glimps into Cuban society. His light comments tell the tale of a tourist abroad who is infected with the aura of Cuban life under the tyrant...,excuse me "comandante en jefe" Castro. Not a bad read for someone who likes their rum with coke--better known as a Cuba Libre. Viva Michener! Comments to jerrywscott1@cs.com

"Six Days in Havana" is Michener's companion volume to the novel "Caribbean." Though the narrative is rather short, Michener's tradition of never failing to please holds up here, and the brevity is more than made up for by John Kings' absolutely fantastic color photos of Cuba. This volume serves both as a behind-the-scenes tour of the Cuban chapters of "Caribbean" and as the closest tour of Cuba an American is likely to get anytime soon. Perfect for the almost-complete Michener collection. (Also features a short section by Kings.)