List Price: $45.00
So Rugged and Mountainous
Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848
Illustrations: 21 B&W Illus., 4 Maps
Published: 2010
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806141039
480 pages, 7" x 10"
Volume 1 in Overland West
Subject: History of the American West
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The story of America’s westward migration is a powerful blend of fact and fable. Over the course of three decades, almost a million eager fortune-hunters, pioneers, and visionaries transformed the face of a continent—and displaced its previous inhabitants. The people who made the long and perilous journey over the Oregon and California trails drove this swift and astonishing change. In this magisterial volume, Will Bagley tells why and how this massive emigration began.
While many previous authors have told parts of this story, Bagley has recast it in its entirety for modern readers. Drawing on research he conducted for the National Park Service’s Long Distance Trails Office, he has woven a wealth of primary sources—personal letters and journals, government documents, newspaper reports, and folk accounts—into a compelling narrative that reinterprets the first years of overland migration.
Illustrated with photographs and historical maps, So Rugged and Mountainous is the first of a projected four-volume history, Overland West: The Story of the Oregon and California Trails. This sweeping series describes how the “Road across the Plains” transformed the American West and became an enduring part of its legacy. And by showing that overland emigration would not have been possible without the cooperation of Native peoples and tribes, it places American Indians at the center of trail history, not on its margins.
Will Bagley
Will Bagley is an independent historian who has written about overland emigration, frontier violence, railroads, mining, and the Mormons. Bagley has published extensively over the years and is the author and editor of many books, articles, and reviews in professional journals. Bagley is the series editor of Arthur H. Clark Company’s documentary history series, KINGDOM IN THE WEST: The Mormons and the American Frontier. Bagley has been a Wallace Stegner Centennial Fellow at the University of Utah and the Archibald Hannah, Jr. Fellow in American History at Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows has won numerous awards including a Spur Award from Western Writers of America, the Bancroft History Prize from the Denver Public Library, Westerners International Best Book, and the Western History Association Caughey Book Prize for the most distinguished book on the history of the American West. So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848 is the first of four volumes of “Overland West: The Story of the Oregon and California Trails”.
“Bagley . . . has provided another landmark study of the pioneer experience. First and foremost, he presents the story of the land itself, and explains how its topography and resources dictated the patterns of western travel and settlement. He likewise analyzes the transformation of Indian life in all the areas served by the Oregon and California trails between 1841 and 1848. Finally, in beautifully written prose, he records the great variety of personal experiences among the people who undertook the adventurous transcontinental journey. Bagley successfully blends the latest scholarly interpretations with an endless array of primary sources, often quoting the overlanders' most revealing words . . . this new study is comprehensive, factually reliable, and supremely analytical. —Choice Magazine
“No one tells the history of the early western trails better than Utah historian Will Bagley. This is an epic story drawing on official records, letters, journals, personal accounts, newspaper articles and legend, all woven together into an absorbing narrative. Not since John D. Unruh, Jr., wrote The Plains Across more than 30 years ago, has anyone tackled such a massive project on westward migration. Or done it this well. So Rugged and Mountainous is as good as history gets.”—Denver Post
“Organized in an imaginative manner.. .a few stage-setting chapters are followed by a very engaging. . . account of the major migrations west from the river towns of the lower Missouri. Bagley is especially good at unpacking the logistical dynamics of organizing, conducting, and sustaining a wagon train across the continent. Subtopics here include outfitting, wagoneering, packing gear, clothing, and provisioning. This makes for fascinating reading and truly re-creates the practical experiences of the overlanders. All serious students of western migration will want this book on their shelves.”—Oregon Historical Quarterly
“So Rugged and Mountainous is the first of a four-volume history, “Overland West: The Story of the Oregon and California Trails,” and is truly outstanding. . .[Bagley’s] prose is impeccable as is his research. As you move along, you taste the grit, feel the sweat, shiver in the cold, and enjoy the wonder of the journey.”—Association for Mormon Letters
