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Title: Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush by Susan Lee Johnson ISBN: 0-393-32099-5 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.67 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Inteligent and Thoughtful
Comment: In my opinion, Susan Johnson's research and demonstration of scholarship makes it inevitable for her to prove and defend her hypothesis throughout her book, ultimately confirmed in a solid thesis statement. What I find most intriguing about this book is the utilization of sources available to bring an "unheard" story, the "othered" story, to print. In Johnson's preface, she discusses the ideas for possible worlds of social justice. By choosing to undertake writing this book, Johnson deconstructs the social space of the California Southern Mines and through her thoughtful, inclusive reconstruction she gives a place to "others" whose testimonies and experience previously went unheard in a "mainstream" historical world. However, it is the stories that Johnson brings to life in this piece that truly 'paints a historical picture' of the California Gold Rush.
Rating: 2
Summary: Potential that doesn't follow through
Comment: While some of the topics Johnson brings up such as the mixing of cultures that takes place during this time, she lacks the organizational skills and talent as a writer to make the book compelling. Her work is all over the place and it's hard to follow especially when trying to use it as the basis of a research paper (which is what I had to do for a upper division history class of mine).
Rating: 2
Summary: Not very well-written
Comment: I always thought reading a book about Gold Rush-era California would be interesting, but Susan Lee Johnson has been able to make it seem not very compelling.
This is a "People's History" sort of book, a tale of the minor characters in history, in particular the miners and their society. In such a book, there are oppressors (often white males) and oppressed (usually women and non-whites). Johnson supports this thesis with numerous tales of robbery and murder, which may all be true, but also reflect a political agenda that she is trying to promote. This removes any real objectivity from her book.
The main problem with this book, however, is it is not very well-organized. Johnson has filled the book with some good (and some not-so-good) anecdotes, but there is not all that much joining these stories together. The result is a sometimes informative but usually rambling work. In the end, I felt like I hadn't learned very much about this era other than a few tales that needed a better context.
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Title: American Alchemy: The California Gold Rush and Middle-Class Culture (Cultural Studies of the United States) by Brian Roberts ISBN: 0807848565 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender, and Culture in Old California (Histories of the American Frontier) by Albert L. Hurtado ISBN: 0826319548 Publisher: University of New Mexico Press Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson ISBN: 0674005392 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West by Patricia Nelson Limerick ISBN: 0393304973 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 1988 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans by Joyce Oldham Appleby ISBN: 0674006631 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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