The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West Summary

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A Book Review of The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick

This book review will examine the historic travels of the Donner Party in The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick. Rarick wrote this book in July 8th, 2009, which provides a current historical and fictional evaluation of the Donner Party’s tragic journey to California. Oxford University Press, a prestigious academic publisher, is the publisher of this book. This book is comprised of 304 pages, which tell the story of the Donner party through the perspective of different family members, archeological evidence, and relatives. In this book, Rarick (2009) attempts to provide a scholarly historical examination of the true events of the Donner party that
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However, this novel is written in a novel-fictional account of the events related to the Donner Party’s journey, which expose some of the fallacies of historical documentation. The snowfall data used to describe the blizzard that trapped many families in the Sierra Mountains is somewhat questionable, since there was no reliably scientific way for snowfall to be accurately measured during the 1840s. More so, it evident that Rarick’s (2009) acute observations of James F. Reed (a somewhat arrogant and over-confident leader in the group) through primary source letters can often be biased. For instance, he claims that “in a letter back home reed made plain his feelings about their success” (Rarick 25). However, Rarick (2009) countermands this Rarick’s haughty view of his role in the Donner Party by assuming that other members of the group thought him a “greenhorn” aka. an inexperienced traveler. At this early stage of the novel, Rarick (2009) does not provide historical evidence that other members of the Donner party defined Reed as a “greenhorn”, which makes assumptions without primary or secondary documentation. In this manner, Rarick’s (2009) novel form provides an easily readable version of the Donner Party’s journey, but it can often take biased accounts of certain leaders, such as James F. Reed, that should also have documentation to back the opinions of other family members in the

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