Suzanne B. Julin

Repost of an earlier review accidentally deleted:

The book has a very limited scope, being focussed solely on the Black Hills area of South Dakota before the USA’s entrance into the Second World War; with such a narrow focus it is curious that there is a simple assumption that the reader knows about the area of interest, many of the personalities, the specialised knowledge that ought to be explained before beginning the history. To that end, a map of the Black Hills would have been useful, locating them within the United States; there is a small and not terribly good map showing the location within South Dakota and Wyoming, and placing some of the points of interest within the Hills, the eponymous hundred square mile, but i found it curiously unuseful as a reference, being little more than blobs of colour with a few circles and squiggles as towns and roads. One may argue, saying that any map could be described that way; i merely point to the difference between these two and any production of the Ordnance Survey.

Unfortunately, the quality of writing seems to be of a similar calibre, giving the information promised in the subtitle, but with little of the flair or style which a skilled historical author might have brought to it. (Disclosure: The book may be suffering by comparison, as i am also currently reading Frank Stenton’s volume of the Oxford History of England, Anglo-Saxon England, which is brilliant.)

Complete review at http://rhydypennau.blogspot.com/2009/12/early-review.html… (altro)

I've spent time in the Black Hills on a few different occasions and I love the history and the landscapes of the area. As such I was looking forward to learning more about the area and how it was started, but I was disappointed in the layout and the writing style of the book. While it is evident that the author has a great passion and knowledge of the area, she lacked a good editor to make the book readable.

It is evident from the beginning that the author has a passion for the area and is extremely knowledgeable about how it came into being. From the introduction I had hopes that it would read more like a travelogue taking the reader on a journey into the areas past and letting us into the hidden details. And although the information is solid, the book doesn't read that way at all. In fact its often downright confusing. Within one chapter we're reading about tourism, but in the span of four pages we start at 1897 go to 1913, then jump back to 1911 and introduced to even more people. There are no clear delineations to help the reader focus on one time period or one area within the chapter and it's very difficult to keep up with what area you're in.

The overall information and photographs used within the book however are fairly solid (she does gloss over the fact that Mt. Rushmore's land was essentially stolen from the Native Americans and was sacred land to them). It's a useful book if someone is writing a history paper on the area or has specific facets of information that they are looking up, not so much for a pleasure read.… (altro)

This book offers a fascinating insight into the history of tourism and of national parks. Despite having read a little on these subjects previously, it wasn't until I read this book that I appreciated just how much of a construct tourism is, despite the apparent arbitrariness of the development of some of the Black Hills sites, where conflicts over land ownership and use were rife in the early days. As a British reader, I don't know the history of the region well, so the significance of some of the historical figures is rather lost on me, but I enjoyed the book nonetheless. It is well-written and elegantly presented, and the period photographs are fascinating.… (altro)