Frances Parkman Rdr PB

by Francis Parkman

Francis Parkman (1823-1893), struggling against painful chronic illnesses and very largely self-taught in his field, was not only a pioneering historian but an enduring one. His monumental... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306808234
• ISBN13: 9780306808234
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 552 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

An inspiring monument to an inspirational historian

For those of us who have known, admired, and loved the historical writings of Samuel Eliot Morison, this book is a special gift. Morison, an inspirational historian of exploration and naval warfare, provides us a very personal introduction to his own teacher and inspiration, Francis Parkman. Parkman, born in Boston on September 16, 1823, was the fortunate son of a famous New England family that had arrived in the New World with the first wave of Puritan settlements. They managed their rise through trade and the church. Known to his friends as Frank, Parkman spent his summers in the woods near Medford exploring, studying, and conjuring. Here he developed a lifelong affection for the outdoors and a pragmatic appreciation of the influence of geography on human affairs. He spent the summer of his freshmen year at Harvard College wandering the woods, reading and dreaming of Indians and the native civilizations that thrived and warred in the twilight before Europeans transformed North America. When he graduated with his class in 1844 he had developed a reputation as a vigorous outdoorsman. He studied by candlelight in the early hours to make the most of daylight outdoors. He was a crack shot with a rifle and his endurance in cross-country excursions was legendary. He learned to live off trout and moose meat and once spend three days shivering in a constant rain after his hand-made bark canoe disintegrated in the rapids of the Magalloway river. Late in his college career he developed a crippling neurological malady. He began to suffer terrible headaches, insomnia, and semi-blindness which he personified as "the Enemy." The Enemy would dog him for the remainder of his life. The headaches and blindness would make light unbearable and loud noise excruciating. The illness frequently created an enervating condition which, for others, would have made reading and writing impossible. But Parkman overcame. He arranged that his historical research would be collected and read to him aloud. Like Churchill, he processed this material, composed his prose in his head, and often wrote through an amanuesis. When no help was available, he composed in the dark using a writing board equipped with a horizontal rule that enabled him to produce legible longhand. Parkman's love of the outdoors and his personal philosophy of history demanded that he visit every scene of interest. Despite his illness, Parkman personally walked each inch of the terrain that figured in his texts. In his adult life, Parkman was not only an eminent and influential historian; his métier also encompassed horticulture. In an era when horticulture was respected as an arm of the natural sciences, he distinguished himself through the collection and cultivation of thousands of varieties of roses: he won prizes and wrote books on this subject as well. It was this gardening life that often brought him great comfort from his physical ailment. Rather than settle into a respecta

Buy for your teens, read all you can

All Parkman's books are so good you never want them to end. The strange people and happenings have entertainment value that rivals Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' but is all well documented history.