Men to Match My Mountains

Rating:
Summary: Obvious Errors
Review: I agree that Irving Stone's Men to Match My Mountains is an entertaining series of intertwined stories about the settling of the west, but it is tainted by a couple of obvious and major factual errors in the early going. Before page 60, he's got 1840s explorers walking the banks of Shasta Lake, which didn't exist until Shasta Dam was completed in 1944. He's also got guys climbing UP the Eastern Sierra to Owens Lake, which is impossible since Owens Lake is at the base of the Eastern Sierra (or was, until the City of L.A. diverted its water). It makes me wonder what else he got wrong. An entertaining book about history loses a lot of its appeal if it's inaccurate.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Readable, Entertaining and Informative History
Review: I agree with the previous reviews so I will not duplicate their effort. I too want to emphasize that this book's strength is in its wonderful telling of the stories of western expansion that many Americans know only a piece of. It is an excellent survey with enough detail to do justice to the individual episodes without getting bogged down. Each subject in the book has been treated in more detail elsewhere; where this book shines is in covering them all and deftly weaving them together to give a portrait of 19th-century western America. I think those of us who live in California especially appreciate learning about the people for whom much of our landscape is named. Read it and tell your friends about it.

Rating:
Summary: A lesson in human psychology
Review: Irving Stone is known more as a novelist than a historian. Consequently some serious historians have relegated this book to the realm of popular blather. But in spite of the fact that the book is entertaining and readable it is also serious history. Stone conducted extensive research and produced a masterpiece. It has been continuously in print for over 40 years. Its pages encompass the mountain west from Colorado to California and it is populated with heroes, visionaries, eccentrics and rogues. A must have book to be enjoyed again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Readable History Lesson
Review: Irving Stone is known more as a novelist than a historian. Consequently some serious historians have relegated this book to the realm of popular blather. But in spite of the fact that the book is entertaining and readable it is also serious history. Stone conducted extensive research and produced a masterpiece. It has been continuously in print for over 40 years. Its pages encompass the mountain west from Colorado to California and it is populated with heroes, visionaries, eccentrics and rogues. A must have book to be enjoyed again and again.

Rating:
Summary: A lesson in human psychology
Review: Man versus nature. That is how I would summarize this book. The epic struggle between the basic human desire to better himself and the seemingly formidable force of nature standing in its path is brilliantly written in such a personal way only Irving Stone can depict. I would recommend this book to those who are not only a student of American history but to all who are wondering what exactly we, as human beings, are truly capable of once we have a dream, a destination and that little thing we call hope. This book truly inspires.