The Oregon Trail

In my little book reviews I’m always coming back to this idea of sympathetic imagination. Sympathetic imagination, for me, is the ability to put oneself in another person’s place, to imaginatively enter into someone else’s mind and perspective. Exercising sympathetic imagination means withholding ju......more

Turned out “The Oregon Trail” by Francis Parkman was not the book I was looking for about the Oregon Trail, but it was interesting. The book was published in 1849. Parkman provided beautiful, detailed descriptions of his travels including the flora and fauna but also people and places. I find one mu......more

I nearly didn't finish this. I've been obsessed with pioneers and the west and my ancestors. This book, which I've read a couple of times many, many years ago, I've read with new eyes and ears this time, and since it was published in 1849, it is absolutely not PC. Where in the past I was able to ove......more

"Pur-sioux-ing Exotica" In the 1970s, British university graduates could take a year off and make their way across Europe, through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, overland to India. It was "breaking away", "a testing of self", "seeing the world", "the search for the other" or maybe just drugs......more

It was ok! Almost rated 3 stars but... The Oregon Trail or Let's Shoot Some Buffalo or Indians Suck, Whites Rule. I really love the way Parkman describes a scene. and for that and that only I'll read more of his stuff and try something else too, what made me not put 3 stars, was that he was talking ab......more